


A Bulbasaur Will Eat Your Face

by DixieWilliams



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Babysitting, Gen, Swearing, YouTube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 09:58:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4742075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DixieWilliams/pseuds/DixieWilliams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Matt Watson is unexpectedly involved in a car crash on the other side of the country, Louise has no choice but to leave Darcy with Phil and Dan for a few nights.  Chaos, misunderstandings, and a very skeptical Phil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Author's Notes

Author's notes:

So here I am, on the express to Hell for writing RPF about a four-year old.

Going into this thing, here are a few basic notes:  
_ Phil's POV.  
\- Phil's the smartest guy in the room, at all times, basically. I love AmazingPhil, he's sweet and nerdy, and very very kind, but I love how the man Phil Lester created this persona. Real life Phil is probably the smartest guy on any VidCon panel. I'd trust him with any kind of friendly overture. He looks like he gives really great hugs.  
\- There have been a few instances of Phil's real-life reactions to Darcy:  
see: hairy egg: https://youtu.be/4ygVDOffWLE?t=2m48s  
see: I'd be more excited about a reindeer: https://youtu.be/MD0Zp3zGDwY?t=3m17s

-If you're a really smart dude, like the Phil Lester in my mind is, usually you try really hard to be a good father. Super hard. Research out the wazoo. You worry. Therefore, Phil will be having internal monologues that will not reflect gentle, sweet AmazingPhil as much as worried, deathly afraid Phil Lester. I think both Dan and Phil will probably be great fathers, but they have zero experience in taking care of a little one by themselves. 

\- I am not English. If you're English, and you start screaming we DON'T call it that, I'm sorry.  
\- Apologies, forever and for always to Matt Watson. You were the catalyst because I could put you in that car without affecting the remaining work.

Phan status:  
If you squint really hard, queerplatonic.  
If you squint really hard, best bros for life.  
If you squint really hard, long term established relationship.  
That is far off the topic of this story, so it doesn't even factor. Sorry.


	2. Chapter 2

Phil knew that Dan was up to something. The quiet murmur of his voice after Louise had rang was irritating, buzzing lowly, the quick glances from beneath his brows at Phil as he walked past. The gray t-shirt twisted at his neck, long slim folds crunched together as Dan partially shut the glass door to the kitchen.

Phil ignored him. He was too busy making his way to the coffee, the rich hearty coffee, which should still be located in the cabinet, above the coffee maker, in the kitchen. Phil sought it blindly. His hand trailed along the wall as he trudged toward the door. Did the hallway never end? Dan shifted uncomfortably as Phil squeezed past him, twisted the phone beneath his chin. His long fringe flopped over the silver casing as he said quickly, "Yes. How long do you think?" 

Listening half-heartedly, Phil shoved the door in, and hissed, "What?! What?" 

Dan turned away. Phil bit down an irritated snort. 

Phil stepped round to the kettle and lifted it, banging the glass loudly as Dan rolled his eyes and moved back through into the lounge. Phil stood in the kitchen, watching him run away. Phil tightened his lips. Such as a wanker! What secrets were they sharing, and why wasn't Dan at least cupping his phone's speaker, to give his patented growling, moving, overly dramatic gestures of silence command, wrinkles moving across his face, hands flying to and fro? He rattled the kettle into the sink and filled it with water. The morning sun was filtering slowly through the blinds onto three of his plants as the water ran. At half ten, it was early for Dan to be up out of bed, much less making plans for world domination with Louise. 

To be honest, Phil had been surprised that she had called Dan so early. The quiet tone of 1D’s Steal My Girl had startled him out of a dream of running toward the radio station, late for a meeting, and a man who kept blocking him in the zebra crossing. Then the rumble of Dan’s voice through the wall, quickly punctuated by startled squeaks, had kept him awake. Finally, Phil had thrown the duvet back and stumbled out of bed. He had fumbled his glasses on as he had gone down the stairs for a quick wash and to the toilet. When he had returned, Dan had moved to the hall, head leaned against the wall. Sneaky bastard! It was too early in the morning for this shit. 

Now he heard Dan's voice exclaim, "What?!" too loudly.... then "Yes..." in a trailing voice, unsure and hesitant. Dan was pacing in the living room, the low murmur of his voice through the wall.

Phil dumped a round of coffee into the filter and put the kettle back on the base. No coffee for at least five minutes. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Definitely too early for this.

Suddenly Dan's voice raised slightly. Are you sure? from the other room, and then, We don't mind.... I'm sure that Phil will.... and his voice dropped again. Phil opened the cabinet and took down an empty mug, set it on the counter. Dan was working his nerves too early. 

He wandered back around the corner, only to find Dan sitting in his trackies on the table. How dirty were those pants? Phil rushed and bumped him off. His head jerked up at Phil. For the first time this morning, Dan waved him away, his long slim fingers trailing in the air, as Dan murmured, "Just take all the time that you need. I know that you're worried.."

Phil leaned against the couch as Dan walked the length of the room twice. When Dan turned to face him again, he was saying quietly into the phone, "How much?.... och, Louise, we've got more things crammed into our cupboards..“ When Dan glanced up at him, there was a line squeezed between his eyes. 

Phil crossed his arms. What on earth was Dan on about? Dan paced more furiously, the words tumbling out as he passed. "As much time.... you think today? Yeah?... if they're the best, then it'll be worth it... no, we'll pass the time somehow..."

Now Phil was definitely worried. Why did it sound like Dan was planning a trip? Had YouTube called another impromptu meeting of creators? Dan finally nodded, and with a swallow, repeated, "An hour, you think? Yeah... yeah... if she's ready, then just tell her that it's an adventure." Suddenly Dan broke out into a grin and threw his hands up. "Adventure time!" he exclaimed. Almost immediately, he deflated, looked a little chagrined. That nose, which Dan always said looked like a potato, wrinkled in a dozen places. "Yeah, yeah... right. Grab your bags. See you then."

Dan’s phone chirped lightly as he disconnected the call to hold it to his chest. He took a deep breath, blew out his wind through his mouth, took a second deep breath and then looked directly at Phil. Phil was really worried now. What was going on?

"Phil," he began, "I've got some good news and some bad news." 

"Oh bugger--"

"Which one do you want first?"

Phil swiped a hand across his face. Dan frowned at him, and Phil knew that he was hesitantly feeling his way around a prior-coffee Phil. Such a Phil was dangerous. "Haven't had my morning coffee, haven't even properly woke up yet," he sighed. "Give me that bad news first. "

Dan set the phone down onto the table, and the click made Phil jump a bit. "Hmm...," Dan tapped the back of the phone. "Louise's ex-husband Matt was involved in a motor accident in Exeter." He peeked at Phil, who immediately blinked and shook his head.

"What?! When?"

"Not two hours ago. They've just rung her, and his mum has rung her, and they're both on their way to see him."

"Is it serious?" Phil drew a leg up and flopped against the arm of the sofa. Poor Louise, so bright and bubbly.... oh no, he thought despondently, his caffeine-less tummy temporarily forgotten. "He's hurt, badly?"

"Fractured pelvis, broken leg, and a few cracked ribs. They've got him in hospital." Dan drew a hand through his hair, his face pale and drawn. "He's hurt badly. But," Dan pointed a single finger, "critical care unit, really good hospital... surgeons on point, he's got really good team round him, yeah?"

Phil shook his head sadly. "Poor Matt!" Phil put his head in his hands, chin wrinkling against his little finger. 

Dan stepped slowly closer, shifting his weight from one leg to another quickly. Phil knocked back a bit. "Why do I sense there's a connection to this good news?"

"Good news is..." Dan groaned a little at the back of his throat and screwed up his face in that way that fans found adorable but Phil knew portended a small unpleasant reaction, the stillness of the expression, lips pulled back over those perfect teeth in a wide grin, eyebrows quirking slightly, breath still caught in his throat. "Good news is.. we can help!" It was that emphatic declaration which chilled Phil’s heart. It sounded faintly like a used car salesman on the offensive.

"Oh no," Phil murmured. "What have you done?"

"We can help Louise," Dan poked into Phil's shoulder sharply, "help her out in her hour of need."

The back of Phil's head rapped against the wall behind the couch as he leaned back. This definitely sounded like quite a bit of transforming the situation into the best outlook possible, a Dan specialty. The last time Phil had listened to such a scheme he‘d ended up with a thirty-minute layover in New York between two gates that were a mile apart. "No, no, no... what did you do?!" With a start, his bright blue eyes widened, and Dan cringed back a bit, his hip bumping into the table. The phone clattered across on the table. "Oh, no... you were talking about bags..."

"Now, Phil, you have to see this as the opportunity to help Louise sort everything as she helps Matt, yeah?" Phil's head ached, but he couldn't be sure it wasn't a lack of caffeine. Dan pinched his fingers together about ten centimeters apart. "A slight opportunity." 

"Dan!" Phil whined. "Not a tiny opportunity... not a--" he gulped "-- meter-tall opportunity?"

"Okay… okay….. okay, okay," said Dan and in the width of that dramatic pause, when he sighed and his eyes pinched shut slightly, Phil's head throbbed again. He could feel the blood pulsing in his ears. This was bad. This was very, very bad. 

"It's just for one night. Or two." Dan shifted his weight again. "Just a night, or two... with lovely Darcy, who literally has no one else in the world right now--" he grabbed at Phil's t-shirt clad shoulder as Phil leaned forward on the sofa, groaning loudly into his hands. Phil peeked up at him from beneath his fingers, his head shaking slowly. "One night, Phil, we can manage one night. Or… two."

"What about--- What about anybody else?" Phil snapped his fingers quickly, pointing down at the phone, panic beginning to draw up the sharp line of his back. "Gotta to be someone else, right? Chummy? Her cousins?"

"She’s tried, Phil," Dan replied, "Zoe and Alfie are in Greece on vacation. It‘d take them a whole day to get home on the next flight. Lou's sister just had that hand surgery two days ago, can't pick up anything heavier than a coffee cup, and definitely can‘t work with a four year old for a day or two. Her aunt and uncle are in America for a business trip. She's tried two school friends -- but the families are both on holiday. And Matt's mum is now traveling out to Exeter with Louise." 

Dan shook his head and hooked his fingers around the back of his neck. "We're like, fifth, no… maybe sixth on her list. She said -- she said, Phil! -- that she could try a teacher at the primary school maybe, or track down her cousins.” Dan bent his head, frowned, and Phil’s knees were suddenly watery. “They’ll be people Darcy doesn’t even know that well, and that Louise hasn’t been to their homes, but she’d move on from us… if we insisted."

Phil grasped his knees. The cookie monsters mocked him, bright smiling blue faces, cookies crumbling over his legs. "What about the time she'll lose in coming here?" he pleaded.

Dan shrugged. "What time? It's an hour to travel to London, and then she's already packed and can pick up an express out of the stations. It's probably better for her to backtrack a bit because she'll be in Exeter so directly."

Phil scuffed a sock against the wooden floor. Darcy, he thought, was a little alien creature. It wasn't that he didn't like children. He liked children enormously. They seemed to have a light and a life in them that he loved to watch. For a man who created that innocence in so many of his videos, Phil enjoyed knowing that some younger viewers saw their own sense of wonder in his work. 

But it was harder to navigate in real life. Every time Phil held a baby, it wept. Perhaps not at first, but eventually the tiny body would squirm and Phil would hold too strongly, or its mum would rush over and help Phil support its head as his fingers splayed in all different directions and his heart pulsed in frightening rhythm. Babies and children liked sleeping through encounters with Phil, no matter what faces he pulled or jokes he told. Babies older than a few months seemingly found him annoying and distasteful. Older children would look at him curiously when he spoke. Phil didn’t know if it was the depth of his sonorous voice or his height, but no matter how softly he spoke or how he bent down to be on their level, little children would twist and squirm away from him after a few stilted moments. It wasn't until the lowest ages of his subscribers, perhaps eight or nine years old, that Phil's humor was met was laughter, that he wasn't met like a sneaky clown in the deadliest horror novel. 

Darcy fell directly in the middle of that terrible wasteland. The last time he’d met her at Louise’s, she’d hid behind Louise’s sofa for half an hour and then played in her bedroom. None of his jokes worked as she had cautiously walked past him to take lunch from Louise‘s table. Louise had tried to make her stay, but Phil had quietly shaken his hand. He wasn’t going to force the issue by asking her mum to keep her against her will in the same room. The sandwich had nearly slid off the plate and the juice had almost spilled as Darcy gave him a side-eye stare walking back to her bedroom. 

Phil peeked at Dan from beneath his fingers.

“All we have to do,” said Dan, “is not kill her.” Phil groaned at that nihilist thought. Dan would spend the next forty-eight hours playing with her. Phil already felt the urge to take care of Darcy, to keep her safe, and Dan would be funny and bright and laughing, but he wouldn’t help. Not in the way that Phil needed him to help. Even now Dan’s eyes were flickering back and forth between his hands, and Phil fought the surge of panic that seemed to be overtaking him.

Dan might was well have told him that they’d adopted a giraffe for two days for all the good that it did. Just a night, said Dan. Phil felt a shiver run down his spine. Or two. For two gigantic nerds, surrounded by games and stuffed animals, they would be lucky if they didn't seriously maim her emotional growth. This was bad, worse than bad.

Round the corner, the kettle whistled urgently in the kitchen. Phil stood quickly and frowned. "I'm off to get some coffee," he growled.

Dan called after him, "Prepare yourself well, Phil! They arrive in an hour!" As Phil slid out into the hallway, shuffling in his Iron Man socks, Dan watched his shoulders slump.


	3. Chapter 3

“You lay right here, darling,” murmured Louise into Darcy’s curls, as she held her daughter on her lap and smoothed a hand over the long chaise. Dan hunkered down in the center of the lounge, knees bent awkwardly at an angle, watching Darcy bury her face in the voluminous folds of cloth at her mother’s knee. Darcy looked from Louise to Dan and shook her head once. “You did!” Louise insisted. “Dan” -- she placed a hand on his knee -- “picked you up and set you on his bed to sleep while we filmed.”

“A video?” whispered Darcy. She peeked over at Phil, who warily gave her a brief thumbs-up and a raised eyebrow from the dining chair pulled out from the table, and then swung her attention back to Dan. Phil took a sip of his second cup of coffee. 

He remembered that day. Louise had arrived with two bags for one baby -- much like now, he thought warily, poking the lumpy Hello Kitty bag at his feet with one socked foot. She had just been mobile enough and vocal enough that Phil remembered her visit vividly, though Darcy couldn’t remember her last visit to their flat. _She could walk! Louise never said she was walking!_ Phil had realized it in one terrible moment, when Louise set her down and she tottered over to the sofa. Oh, God, he had looked around -- sharp-cornered table, knives on the counter in the kitchen, the outlets weren’t blocked against prying little fingers. Almost as soon as Louise had arrived for the collab, he had made himself scarce. Phil had smoothed the hair on her head once as he had walked past, the little slick blonde curls springing back beneath his fingers. Dan was already making funny faces at the toddler, as Louise held her on one hip. Then Phil made for the tube and a day in London, hopefully to leave Louise and Dan to deal with whatever shenanigans that an eighteen-month-old child could get into. When he had returned hours later, the lounge still smelled like melting wax, and the baby had been asleep on Dan‘s bed. 

Now Darcy was fisting her hand onto her mother’s lap, older and grown by several inches. Phil squinted at her. Every time he saw her, she seemed to have grown by a leap. Now her hair was much longer and straighter, the eyes more curious, one thumb stuck into her mouth but she talked around it at various times. Phil narrowed his eyes around their lounge. It was filled with plushies and Muse and the rock band setup in the corner. The only thing remotely appealing to a little girl might be the Mario flowers in their vase. Phil took a sip of coffee. Maybe not… they were soft and pretty, but up close, frightening. 

“Yes,” said Louise, “Dan took you in to have a lie-down while we made a video. Do you know what we did? We stripped the hair off of poor Danno’s legs here, yeah?” Darcy grinned and shook her head as though she didn‘t believe her mum‘s words. Louise spoke slowly, carefully enunciated. “We did! He screamed and screamed -oh oh oh” Louiise blew out her cheeks and made a frog face. Phil was proud of her for her meme interpretation. It seemed to work on Darcy. 

“We did!” parroted Dan. “It hurt so badly. Do you want to go see where you lay whilst Mummy was torturing me?” He reached for her hand and with a brief smile from Louise, pulled her down and then walked with her to the door. Darcy walked to the lounge door with several backward glances at Louise. When they were in the hall, Louise waited until Dan opened his bedroom door and said, “See? Right here…”

As soon as Darcy was out of sight, Louise stood and Phil quickly stood as well. She touched one bag, pink Hello Kitty, with her foot, and whispered,” Several changes of clothes, a sweater if she gets cold, extra shoes… I was throwing things into it, but I think I got everything.” Louise nudged the other black bag dropped in the floor. “Toiletries, toothbrush and paste, brush for her hair. Her favorite stuffed animal is in there as well.”

Phil nodded, glancing back and forth between the bags. In the other room, he could hear Dan talking animatedly and then the sound of a few notes tapped on the piano. Stepping quickly closer to Louise, Phil brushed a hand down her arm. Louise’s eyes filled with tears. “Can’t let go yet, Philly-o,” she whispered, her breath choked. “Oh, no, can’t let go yet.” She hugged herself and then Phil leaned in, and bent his head to her shoulder, one arm wrapped around her.

Phil swallowed. “Let us know when you get in tonight, yeah?” he said quietly.

“He’s awake, he’s talking,” Louise stuttered. “But he doesn’t want Darcy to be there, cause… you know--” Louise visibly stilled and shut her eyes, drew a deep breath -- “He doesn’t -- he doesn’t want her to see him like that. Surgery tomorrow.”

“He’ll be alright,” whispered Phil. Dan and Darcy’s voices grew louder in the hall. Dan was apparently telling her a story about Hello Kitty. Thank God! Phil was glad that a shared obsession may help all of them through this time. 

Louise stepped back and wiped her eyes a bit with the back of hand. She clapped her hands and on cue, Darcy ran to her from the open doorway. Louise lifted her daughter into the air with a brief grunt. “Alright, monkey, so I’m off,” she said. “Gotta get back in the cab, then back to the station, then on to see Daddy and Gran, and then to get Daddy all better,” she murmured into Darcy’s hair as she carried her into the hall and down the stairs. Phil watched Louise set Darcy down on the landing. “I’m off,” she said cheerily, and Louise’s voice cracked.

“Don’t go,” whispered Darcy, her small fist clutching her mother’s blouse. Dan looked back at Phil sadly, as Darcy wailed, “Don’t go, Mum!”

“Must, darling,” said Louise, pulling away, her voice rough and low, and stood, leaned up as first Dan and then Phil leaned over the railing for hugs. Louise’s shoulders felt stiff and square. Phil felt tears pricking the corners of his eyelids. “Must go,” she said as she let go of Phil, and there was an unmistakable sniffle as she looked away from him back to Darcy, who had decided that stepping down to the top step and grasping her mother’s skirt would argue her case more effectively. 

Louise brushed a hand through Darcy’s hair and said tightly, dropping a kiss on her daughter’s forehead, “I’m going to call and text and facetime so much that I’ll practically be in the lounge with you, monkey. And when Daddy feels better, we’ll do it together!” She kissed her daughter’s forehead several times in quick succession. 

She pulled away, blowing kisses to Dan and Phil. Dan moved round behind Darcy, and picked her up as she began to cry. Her arms stretched over the empty space of the steep staircase down to the front door of the flat. Phil wished that he had no hearing. Darcy was hiccupping with the force of her little mewls. Every few seconds she struggled in Dan’s arms and all Phil could hear was the strangled cry of _Mummy! Mummy!_ Her pain was something he had to ignore. He focused all of his attention on Louise.

Louise, below them at the front door, wiped her nose with her sleeve. It was so child-like and childish, and Phil thought she was beyond it, but when she straightened her gait and turned to look up the steps to the landing, Phil was stunned by the raw power in her movement. He would have been a puddle on the floor at the sound of his child weeping. Louise smiled, the tears shining in her eyes, and called back, “I love you so much, darling! I’ll see you soon!” She waved to all three of them. Louise’s bravery startled Phil in its clarity.

Phil looked over at Dan, who was grasping the struggling child more tightly as she tried to escape his grasp. His head was turned down and away. Darcy moaned pitifully low in her throat… “Mum! I want to go with you! I want to goooo….”

“You’re so brave, Darcy! I’ll see you soon. I love you!” With a clap, Louise put her hands to her mouth and then quickly left. The sound of the door clicking shut echoed for a moment, and then was replaced with Darcy’s quiet hiccups. Dan looked at him over the child’s head. Phil shrugged helplessly. What did they know about anything? About little girls? This was bad. This was terribly, terribly bad.

Dan set her down experimentally on the carpet. Oh, God, thought Phil suddenly, what if she runs down the steps to beat against the door? An even worse mental image assailed him. There were so many steps and stairs in their bloody flat. What if she fell down them? Phil clasped the railing until his knuckles turned white. 

Darcy wiped her eyes with an open hand. Dan hovered behind her. For a moment, Phil thought madly, she’s going to run down the stairs and fall, and she’ll break her arm, and good luck explaining that to Louise… 

Instead she hiccupped one last time. Without saying anything to either of them, she pushed past Phil and walked through back into the lounge. In just a moment, Phil heard her unzip one of the bags and then a moment later, there was a clamoring squeak of the sofa as it slid under weight.

Dan walked up to him and grimaced faintly. “See,” he said quietly, “she’s sat in the lounge. Probably in a browsing position. Proper part of the Dan and Phil household already.”

“This is going to be a disaster.”


	4. Chapter 4

In the end, it was not quite a complete disaster, but neither of them could relax enough to make it into a total success.

For an hour, Darcy kept herself on the sofa. Phil dug a coloring book out of one of the bags and brought it to her a few minutes in, and she sullenly took the book and the small crayons, ignoring his attempts at interacting with her about the colors. Phil prepared himself some lunch, a small cup of water with a sandwich, as he walked around and spoke quietly to her. _What are you drawing? Is that a fish? I love fish. Can you make your best fish noise? Do an impression of a fish? No? Is there a fish in the toilet at your house, hmm?_ Nothing that he said to her elicited anything else than a hunched shoulder and a frown, and then she would stop drawing and stare at his hands, until Phil moved away.

Dan came in for his own meal. A bowl of soup went quickly down the gullet as Dan kept checking on her. They spoke quietly about potentially preparing Darcy some lunch, and Dan opened the fridge to evaluate their pitiful selection of choices. They had some fruits and vegetables, and three different kinds of alcohol, but no real food for little fingers. Dan took down a tablet and begin to prepare a list for the shop around the corner. When he left twenty minutes later, Phil dumped his crumbs into the bin, and checked on Darcy. She was still resolutely silent on the sofa, a light blue crayon working to shade the sky in her drawing. Phil wondered aimlessly up and down the hall, listened to the fridge hum in the kitchen, used the toilet, found himself scrolling through Twitter while standing at the railing. The child had reduced him to a lurker in his own flat.

When a siren rang loudly outside the lounge’s windows, Phil glanced in at her again, and found her all the way across the floor stood near the window, peeking out the glass. Phil’s heart did a flip. One tiny hand was smacking the glass repeatedly. Phil crossed the room quickly and grasped her beneath the arms, swung her in the air toward the center of the room, and Darcy squeaked as her feet left the floor. “No more of that,” he murmured, “you’ll break the glass and cut yourself.” _Little harsh there, Philip,_ he thought, but once again he was worried that if she patted the glass strongly enough, it might split and hurt her.

Darcy was unceremoniously deposited on the sofa. She smoothed her hair down and then her dress, and gave Phil a very stern look, which he resisted all urge to return to her in all his severity, and then crossed her arms with a petulant sigh. What did one say to that? Phil went back to the table, opened his laptop, and fixed his gaze somewhere between the bright white screen and the little girl who kept thumping the back of her head against the sofa at random intervals. 

Dan returned half an hour later, carrying three large canvas bags. His attempts at humor and finding out if Darcy liked any of the foods that he had bought were met with even more stony silence. When Dan furrowed his brow at Phil in silent askance, Phil just shrugged. He’d already wiped the glass of fingerprints without looking at Darcy. 

Late in the afternoon, Darcy had stood and wondered around, asking then in a low voice, “Where’s the loo?” She tugged at the corner of Dan’s jeans and trailed obediently along behind him until they met the stairs, and then Dan swept her up one hip. Sending her into the bathroom, Dan gestured to the small stool sat at the foot of the toilet. It was a gag gift from one of their friends. At over two meters each in height, Phil and Dan had no real need of it, but it was painted with a small sign -- **the Little Helper, when Littles Need Help** \-- and a small drawing of a short, wide man leaned wobblingly over a large cabinet. Phil blessed whatever force had inspired them to set it, unused, in the upper office closet instead of chucking it directly in the bin. Now they were at least spared Darcy’s indignity at having one of two grown men set her on the actual bowl. 

A flush reverberated through the flat, and Darcy emerged. Phil peeked down the hall and the stairs as Dan moved back from the door. Niall grinned psychopathically from inside the door for just a moment before it drifted shut again. Dan took her to the sink to wash her hands. Returning, she went back to her small dark nest on the sofa. Phil had begun to imagine that she might simply build a small pile of Hello Kitty, coloring books, her jacket, and assorted bags around her and live there for the next two days. If she did, Phil would do his best to push food beneath the clothing, and otherwise leave her alone. Dan might actually camp out at the foot. He kept shifting from foot to foot as he walked back and forth between the table, the sofa, his bedroom, and the kitchen. Phil scrolled Twitter as he watched Dan’s nervous circuit from the corner of his eye. 

Finally Dan settled on the sofa, flipping on the television and scanning anime titles in Netflix. For the next hour Dan fiddled with the remote and chewed a fingernail. Darcy alternately looked at Dan when he spoke to her, colored in her book, and stared at the windows opposite. Phil worked on his laptop at the table. The screen’s glow was more familiar then Darcy’s wrinkled look of disgust at everything around her. She hated the animes, it seemed, and disliked anything to do with them. 

That night, she absolutely refused to eat. Dan had cooked her a few chicken nuggets from a small bag, put out some crisps on the plate, and poured her a glass of regular milk (a step up from almond milk, in Phil’s opinion, not the little monster appreciated it). He struggled to keep his temper when Darcy slammed her fork into the table, screeched, “No! I don’t want this!” She folded her arms. 

Dan tried everything. He cut her pieces into smaller chunks. He smacked his lips a bit as he nommed on a tiny bite, quickly smiled at her and nodded. He tried the airplane game with the fork. Darcy moved his hand away, as he sighed and pleaded, “Come on, just a bit.”

“She’ll eat if she’s hungry, Dan.”

“I don’t want it!”

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“No!”

“Sure, dearest?”

“Leave her, Dan,” Phil peeked at her over the screen of his laptop and found a red-faced, curly-haired Medusa staring back at him. “If she’s hungry, she’ll eat.”

Dan put Darcy’s fork down. Phil ate a small meal at the table. For the next half hour, it was a stand-off. Dan managed to choke down his own supper, glancing toward Darcy every so often. Eventually she slid off the yellow-colored plastic, and retreated to her encampment on the sofa. Dan moved her plate to the chaise but she did not even glance at it. She appeared to be making the bluest sky in the world with her crayon. Phil thought bitterly, _this is it, just this? What Louise raves about? What Mum teased Martin and Cornelia about?_ He really couldn’t imagine himself at the full-time caretaker of such a creature. Darcy had been in their flat for an entire afternoon, and all their ministrations had only produced a reaction of utter disillusionment with the entire proceeding. 

Louise’s ringtone on Dan’s phone saved the situation somewhat. Dan put his phone into Darcy’s hands, and for a brief respite, she curled up with her back to the room, delightedly talking into the camera. When she moved the screen around, Phil caught a glimpse of a very tired Louise, sat somewhere with industrial mint-colored walls. He and Dan exchanged a look as Louise panned the camera slowly over to reveal Matt. Darcy’s joyous squeal left Phil‘s ears ringing. Matt’s face was partially covered with a white bandage. A large purple and green bruise was evident underneath one swollen eye. But his voice was upbeat, though hoarse and thin, and he asked Darcy what she’d eaten and what she’d played and if the sun was still shining. Phil watched as Darcy reached over and took a chicken chunk and bit into it so that Matt could see her. Dan visibly relaxed. Phil grinned at him from the corner. Poor Dan was probably thinking about the inevitability of a hunger strike until her mum returned.

As Darcy asked when she’d see them again and when she was going home, Dan tapped out an indecipherable message on the table. Dan logged into Twitter from Phil’s laptop and announced that his live show was cancelled. Phil raised his eyebrows at him, but Dan only shrugged. He murmured quietly, “Too many questions if there’s a …visitor… in the background.”

Finally a weary Matt passed Dan’s phone back to Louise, who smiled as Darcy asked for the third time if her mummy could see her drawing, causing Darcy to hold it crookedly against the backdrop of the couch. By the time Louise rang off, Darcy had eaten a few bites of food and sipped a bit of milk from a glass which Dan cupped against her lips briefly.

Dan texted Louise. Louise said that it was soon time for bed following such a momentous phone call. Dan rummaged in the bag for her nightie. What he produced from the bag was a long pink sleeveless sheath. Dan stared at Phil briefly, and held up a small change of underwear. Phil folded one arm over the other and looked away, shrugged nonchalantly. Finally, after persuasion from Dan that he wanted her to change, Darcy insisted that she was a big girl and she changed alone in Dan’s room. 

Phil quickly retrieved their spare sheets from the office while Darcy was changing her clothes. On the landing between the hall and the stairs up to the office, they discussed this situation. 

“Phil, we can’t let her stay in the spare,” Dan gestured to the steps up to the office. Through the door Phil could see the cheap frame of the futon. 

Dan motioned in the opposite direction back down to the toilet. “Too many stairs in the middle of the night. What if she falls? What if she lays on the landing all night long, with a broken leg?” 

“The lounge sofa, then.”

“ _Phil!_ ”

“She’ll be fine,” answered Phil nonchalantly, keeping his voice even and slow as he tucked the fitted sheet into the sofa cushions, “we’re just round the corner.” He ignored the small movements of Dan’s hands through his hair. There was no way he was opening the door to other ideas. _Besides_ , thought Phil to himself, _if I leave a evolutionary stone, she can complete her cocoon, evolve, and perhaps emerge as a beautiful new butterfly._

Phil frowned at the soft white cotton sheet as he smoothed it. _Mum would be ashamed of you, Phil_ \-- almost immediately on the heels -- _she’s just a little girl. _It was so easy for Phil to interact with Dan and his friends. They were so close. Phil was shy in crowds, but with his friends, he was relaxed and warm. He had always prided himself on his personal touch during conversation. Even in meetings with new people, provided enough topics of conversation, Phil held his own and could make a fairly good impression. But Phil just couldn’t get his mind to wrap around the concept of this little girl, so different from him, so small and normal. Usually he relied on his nerdiness or his icebreakers to draw people into conversation. It simply didn’t work with a four-year old.__

When presented with the sheets folded into the sofa five minutes later, Darcy only nodded, and grabbed Hello Kitty on one side as Dan tucked her in with the blanket. In Phil’s room, the air conditioner hummed mercilessly, and while not frosty, the heat was noticeably absent from this room as well. Darcy rolled silently toward the back of the couch. Dan raised his eyebrows at Phil and then looked back at the blonde hair snuggled against the darky gray cushion. “Good night, Darcy,” whispered Phil, and they turned off the light in the lounge.

Both men retreated to their respective bedrooms, Dan for browsing, and Phil with a book. It was far earlier than either of them ever turned in. Every half hour or so, Phil would hear the tick-tick-tick creak of Dan’s door and the small thump of feet as Dan peeked into the lounge. 

It wasn’t as though Phil wasn’t worried about her. But he couldn’t seem to break free from his sitting position, the pillows propped at his back, with his book on his knee. There was no auditory intake of breath or shout of alarm from Dan during his checks, so Phil shoved the thought of Darcy hurting herself to the back of his mind. 

Phil counted the hours until nearly midnight, and then ventured out once for the toilet. He did not glance into the lounge when he walked past, but he did slow down. There was a slight breathy noise. It impressed him that Dan was conquering his fear of the creeping dark to listen to Darcy’s steady breathing. Had he not known better, he could have sworn it was a supernatural creature breathing in the lounge. 

Glasses off, bladder emptied, and the air conditioning unit taking the heat away out the window, Phil settled in. At least he could sleep the night away. Perhaps Louise would even be back on the train tomorrow. 

Phil startled awake in the wee hours. It was true. It was true what his mum said: _everything that goes around, comes around._ For all his evil thoughts toward a child -- a child, for God’s sake -- the girl from The Ring was standing next to his bed. Phil yelped loudly, skittered back against his headboard, and caused it to bump solidly against the wall. He heard a thump from Dan’s bedroom. _Fuck!_ muffled through the wall. _Shite!_ in his mind.

“Phil,” said Samara. “It’s bright in the lounge. Can I have a glass of water?”

 _Oh Jesus Christ - Darcy!_ “Darling…. yes, let’s get some water,” he said roughly, his sleep still clinging to the corners of his mind, his thoughts still tumbling until he sat up, and then he had his glasses on and turned to her again. Small mop of blonde hair moved in the dim light of his charging phone on the bedside table, chin resting on his bed. Not Samara. He remembered his mum -- _you used to run into our room five times a night and watch us sleep!_ Phil made a mental note to send his mum flowers and a card, thanking her for not murdering him by accident.

Dan ran past Phil’s door in a flash of black boxers and pale skin. a power charger as a tail. Phil rolled his eyes. He heard Dan skid to a halt in the lounge. “Goddammit, Phil, she’s gone!” cried Dan distantly. “Where the fu-- PHIL!!!!”

“Shh!!! She’s in here,” called Phil, “Dan! You’ll wake our neighbors!”

A few minutes later, all watered and with a small visit to the toilet for good measure -- one could not be too careful with dogs, perhaps even more with children, Phil considered -- and they were sat back on the sofa. Dan was smoothing the sheets. Darcy looked between Dan bent over her nest of blankets and Phil sitting at the end of the sofa, Hello Kitty tucked beneath her arm. Even before she spoke, Phil crossed one blue pajama leg over the other, pinching his nose between two fingers. _Here it comes._

“It’s bright in here,” said Darcy. Dan flipped off the lights again in the lounge and the hall. It definitely glowed outside their windows, thin strips of light blazing around the drawn shades. “It’s too bright,” she repeated. 

Dan yawned and drew his dressing gown around him more tightly. Phil stared at it. He was fairly certain it had originally belonged to a hotel in Florida which had hosted PlayList Live two years ago. Where Dan had dug up the old ratty thing, Phil couldn’t hazard a guess, but at least his boxers and bare chest were covered. Phil found it faintly funny that Dan had pulled it out of the bottom of the wardrobe as an afterthought, modesty around a four-year old apparently making him self-conscious. 

Dan leaned down to touch Darcy’s arm. He asked, “Are you scared?”

“Yes,” Darcy said pitifully, the edges of her scalloped nightdress sweeping the carpet as she hugged the Hello Kitty stuffed cat in the crook of one elbow. The large kawaii eyes mocked Phil. Darcy’s little lip stuck out. “Where’s Mum?”

“Mum’s in Exeter with Daddy, Darcy,” answered Dan. “Don’t be scared. I’m scared of the dark myself. The lounge is a good place to sleep. Let’s get settled back.” He glared at Phil for a moment, who reluctantly lifted off the sofa and stretched. _If he doesn’t see where this is going --_

Dan didn’t see it. He didn’t see it for at least ten minutes. 

Phil stared at the ceiling in his bedroom twenty minutes after that. He was shoved over to the far left. Darcy was tucked beneath the sheets in the middle with Hello Kitty clasped to her side. A very confused Dan was trying to use his part of the duvet to make his customary sushi roll on the far side of Phil’s bed. He wiggled constantly, but without the space to lay in the center of his own bed, Dan couldn’t create his own little roll of duvet around his torso and hips. 

Phil gave him five more minutes of fidgeting before he muttered “Give it up, Dan.” Darcy turned over to her stomach and sighed heavily. She had insisted that if they really wanted her to sleep well, they should sleep with her, and the sofa being too small, that one of their beds was enough. Dan had vigorously protested, until the tears welled up in Darcy’s eyes, and then both of them went into panic mode. Apparently, despite the gentle sounds of Dan’s piano, a combination of the Guildwars shrine and the black headboard had put her off Dan’s bedroom. So the three of them ended up crammed into Phil’s bed. For ten minutes Darcy had arranged herself between them, before dropping off into gradual heavy sighs. 

Now Phil whispered to Dan in the darkness, “You’ll never be able to lay in the middle like you usually do. Just settle in. We’ve got--” he checked the phone -- “five hours until dawn.”

“Fucking hell!”

“ _Language_ ,” Phil hissed quietly. 

“She’s asleep.”

“What if she absorbs language via osmosis? Her hair’s touching you.”

Dan scoffed. “Jesus Christ, Phil, that’s not a thing.”

“Shhhh,” insisted Phil. Darcy shifted slightly. She sighed deeply. Phil caught Dan’s eye in the dim light as they both stopped moving. Darcy scrunched up her body until her bum was sticking up in the air, her little head eventually falling into the gap between the pillows. She began snoring faintly. 

Phil listened as Dan’s breathing gradually slowed and lengthened. He blinked and yawned at the ceiling. He looked down at the little blonde cap of curls next to him. She certainly didn‘t want to be here. Phil felt a painful pinch in his own heart. There wasn‘t anything they could really do to help her. Dan had gotten her extra food, and Phil planned to see if she wanted to do anything special tomorrow, but they were woefully unprepared for this. Phil glanced at Dan. He had hunkered down in the purple side of the duvet, wrapped it tightly around his chest. Phil yawned again. 

One moment he felt the warmth of Darcy’s shoulder against his bicep, then 

\--he was running from the raptor because his motorcycle wouldn’t start and Chris Pratt was acting like a total prat, and 

\--he was working a board at the radio station, but he hadn’t been trained on it, the buttons were all new, or they were in different places, and Dan was laughing at him, it was the worst Dan vs. Phil ever, because Dan was easily tapping and guessing and Phil thought about shoving his shoulder into Dan’s shoulder to push him away from the screen, and then

\--he was carrying a bag down their hallway, but the hall was suddenly miles and miles long, and each door that Phil tried to turn into was unfamiliar, but he had to put the bag down in one of the rooms, he couldn’t just carry it forever, it was small but heavy, and he wasn’t ready to keep carrying it on his journey-

He could hear the faint songs of the early morning birds outside first, a horn tooted on the street and echoed against the building walls all around, and then his air conditioning unit kicked on with a rattle. 

Phil groaned and stretched. The ceiling reflected bright white with the glowing early morning sun. Unexpectedly his clenched moving fist bumped into a small leg. When he looked, even sans glasses, he could tell something wasn’t the same as it had been the night before. Slowly he realized that Darcy had somehow flipped completely in her sleep. Now her head pointed down toward his feet and Dan’s knees, arms and legs askew in the gully between them. Her nightdress was hiked to her knees, and her bony shin was lying over Phil’s forearm. As his eyes adjusted to the faint light, Phil gradually focused on the shape of her head propped against the side of Dan’s stomach. Hello Kitty, also head down toward the end of the bed, was tossed toward their knees.

For a moment, Phil marveled at her little creamy skin, the soft blonde hair mussed sleepily, the eyelashes closed like dark wings against her cheeks. Her rosebud mouth was lightly open, a small spit bubble formed in the corner. Phil squinted at her. The bright curves of Darcy’s cheeks were softened by his poor eyesight. _This was it, this was what they all talked about_ \--- Phil glanced up at Dan’s face, to find Dan’s hands tucked together against his chest, curly hair swept back from his head, bare throat arched, still deeply asleep.

Phil dragged a hand through his quiff with the other hand. Darcy sighed deeply. Phil smiled at her little blonde curly head, nose bent crookedly against Dan’s side. How sweet! Darcy’s jaw worked in her sleep, and Phil wondered what dreams she might be having as she sucked lazily on her lower lip. She grimaced slightly. _Little one_ , he thought gently. 

Darcy shifted her hips and farted directly on Phil’s ribs. The smell struck him a moment later and he gagged slightly as he slid away from her toward the dresser, clutching the nightstand for balance and then dropping a knee to fall clumsily to the floor. Phil heard Dan snort loudly, then gasp, then cough, then mumble out in his early morning rasp _fckn hell who actually shit tha bed_ \-- and by the time Phil was sure he hadn’t twisted his knee and lifted his head to warn Dan, he looked and saw that Dan was standing up on the other side of Phil’s bed, a tall wobbly shape blocking the light, half asleep but shivering.

Phil put his other knee down and untwisted the duvet from his hips. He held his breath as he regarded Dan from his knees. Dan wrinkled his nose and wildly waved the air above the bed. Darcy appeared unfazed, still sound asleep in the remaining hills and valleys of blue and green and purple. Phil dropped his chin to his chest as he rose, swept his glasses from the side table, and then stumbled out to the hall. Dan fled shortly thereafter.

In the hall Phil croaked, “Good morning. Coffee?”


	5. Chapter 5

Louise texted at just after seven. Both Dan and Phil were still struggling to wake up. Phil clapped his hand over the notification beep on Dan’s phone, and as he tossed to it to Dan, he listened intently for any noise from the hall. Dan read Louise’s message quietly -- _surgery at 8 am ends at noon, shreddies should be fine for breakfast, she’ll probably be out until 8:30 or so, please show her these from Daddy_ \-- and then Dan dipped the phone slightly, causing Phil to lean back and adjust his glasses to see the screen. A series of random colorful emoticons, two lines, were typed into the bubble. Dan smiled faintly. Phil shook his head and smiled into the lip of the coffee cup.

They ran around like mad, quickly getting dressed, with Phil sneaking into his own bedroom for his clothes. The lump on his bed half-hidden in the duvet creases didn’t move as he pulled clothes from his wardrobe. They took turns in the bathroom with a quick wash, shave, and brushing of hair. Phil borrowed Dan‘s straighteners. When one was in, the other was sat in the lounge, counting the minutes, scrolling through feeds, and praying that the patter of feet in the hall was just an early morning settling of the floorboards.

By quarter to nine, they heard an actual squeak and thump in the hall, and then it was on to the toilet -- _she needs it,_ muttered Dan as he carried her down the steps --followed by a bowl of shreddies. Phil watched Darcy sit cross-legged on the sofa in her nightgown, the bowl with a tiny bit of milk balanced in the cloth stretched across her lap, her bare feet tucked in. Dan propped his phone on the cushion next to her so that she could respond to Matt with more emojis. The half-dry shreddies turn out to be the perfect finger food for tiny hands. Phil definitely decided to worry about the crumbs later. For once, he was happy that Darcy seemed to be less solemn and more willing to talk to either of them.

In the midst of his googling session, Phil glanced at Dan as he ate his cereal and then walked over to the sofa. Phil retrieved the blue pillow and propped it up beneath the phone. Darcy stared up at him silently. Her curly hair was tangled from sleep, and her big blue eyes seemed to ask him questions that he couldn’t answer. Phil fiddled with the pillow silently, smoothing non-existent wrinkles and tugging at the corners. Darcy ceased her silent study and resumed tapping a moment later. Phil leaned over and saw an upside-message finding its way back to Louise’s cell -- rainbow, rainbow, unicorn, building, family, clapping hands, swing, beach ball, building, family, cat, rainbow were the only ones he made out before Darcy opened the selection window and started scrolling through more choices. Three message bubbles filled with emojis trailed down the window. It is a lexicon that only father and child know. 

By the time the shreddies were gone, Phil had excitedly showed Dan a Google map of their larger neighborhood, and pointed out the green space to the far west. “We should take her,” he said, “It’s a park near here. Remember it? We’ve run there sometimes.”

“Yes, Phil,” Dan replied with a sigh, “believe it or not, I remember last month.” Dan’s sarcasm flared upon Phil’s nerves. It might be a third cup of coffee type of morning. 

“Will you stop being grumpy and get into the spirit of this situation just a tiny bit?” 

Dan leaned one arm against Phil and narrowed his eyes. “You say get in the spirit until we’re in the park, she’s lost, and we have to tell Louise that her child has been kidnapped.” Dan drummed his fingers against the table, watched Darcy tap into Phil’s phone, and shook his head as though he could imagine calling emergency services.

It was definitely a third cup of coffee type of morning. “Jesus, Dan, not everything is going to end so badly,” Phil replied, and hoped. “Come on, Grumpy McGrumperson, help me get her dressed.”

Phil opened the Hello Kitty bag to find several outfits. With advice from Darcy, together they selected a small blue dress with white polka dots and a small eyelet edge. Shucking clothes for bed turned out to be easier than putting on a new day’s clothes. After a few minutes of frustrated groans from Dan’s bedroom, and one alarming cry that her arm was stuck, Dan and Phil helped Darcy dress for the day. Phil pretended he didn’t know which side was the front side of the dress. Darcy didn’t quite take the joke, and kept repeating to him that the buttons were supposed to trail down her back, finally showing him rather exasperatedly how the dress should be oriented. Phil frowned, wondered how that joke had so spectacularly gone off the rails, and then gave up. Dan kept his eyes resolutely on the top of Phil’s head while Phil adjusted all of the clothing with a few quick tugs. The dress was light enough to swing easily and it looked easily cleaned in case she spilled something.

Finally Phil set her on the bed and used the small comb to untangle the tightest snarls. When the comb and even the brush proved too harsh, and Darcy began pleading for him to be careful, Phil resorted to brushing his fingers through the hair until it was smooth and wavy. Down in the bathroom Darcy, Dan, and Phil held a triple tooth-brushing session, and somehow there was a little bit of laughter when they insisted on tapping her on each shoulder, one at a time, showing her foamy tongues, and she did the same, and for a moment something deep inside Phil relaxed. He even laughed a tiny bit when Darcy showed herself her own foamy tongue in the mirror, _ghhhh_ and then snickered, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes squishing her face and her shoulders moving up against her ears. They were making a mess but Phil ignored it for the moment, just relaxing for a single moment. 

Darcy seemed excited about the park. Leaving the apartment, Dan made Darcy laugh with his imitation of a vampire, shrinking from the light. 

When their feet hit the pavement, Dan looked back at Phil with wide eyes and motioned wildly at Darcy, who was jumping from one step to another less than ten feet from the road. “Darcy?“ called Phil as he shut the building’s front door, “hold Dan’s hand!“ Darcy obediently lifted her hand to Dan’s fist and they fell into step a few strides ahead of Phil. 

Dan walked with his hand in Darcy’s tiny fingers as they passed street after street. The sight of Dan’s hand caught up in Darcy’s, sometimes casually swung high and low, caused Phil to suddenly flash forward, considering a time when Dan might become a father to his own children. They had discussed children in the past, as a vague notion that each agreed would be suitable an unknown future time, when it was less about the line at Starbucks and the arguments over petty office politics at the radio station and living on murder road, when each of them might be able to devote himself to the full-time care of a child. In the back of his head, Phil ruminated that sometimes not even twenty-eight year olds were ready to make that huge commitment. Phil kept glancing at Dan‘s neck and shoulders. Dan might already be on the other side of the spectrum. He looked so natural doing it, so relaxed, waiting at the zebra crossing and reminding Darcy to look both ways, one hand casually in his pocket while he hooked his other fingers into the collar of her dress to keep her from running into the road. Phil loved children, but he envied Dan in these moments, when it was an utterly relaxed reaction that Phil struggled to catch for himself.

Usually they caught the tube at this corner, thought Phil as they passed, but now they veered off. Both men had decided it wouldn’t do to run regularly too close to the flat, lest the errant subscriber see them and potentially follow them back to their own front door. By the time they made the park, Dan had lifted Darcy onto his hip. Phil remembered the tiny wheeled and sloped contraption -- it wasn’t actually a proper pram, he thought, prams were for tiny babies, but an _almost-pram, a toddler-pram,_ he dubbed it in his mind, bugger all, he had no idea what it was called -- that Louise sometimes pushed Darcy in when they had visited her home and they had gone out. No such conveniences were found in the home of two grown men.

There were swings on the edge of the park. Phil had a moment to decide. He glanced down at Darcy, still settled on Dan’s hip, and remembered her hateful smirk from last night. _Be brave,_ he thought. Phil ran to one swing and plopped himself into it. He was tall enough and the swing set low enough that his knees were angled above his hips. When he looked back at them, Darcy’s eyes had popped wide. Dan let her down and she ran to the set. Darcy wanted to swing next to him, but her little legs were too short to push off and get her started. She had just enough impetus to lift herself to the seat and then grunted mightily as she swung her legs in the open air. Phil grinned at her.

Dan ran up and pushed her from behind after a moment or two, and then it became a race ever upward. “Watch out, Phil’s higher than you!” Dan laughed after a minute of contest. 

Phil felt his fringe flap in the breeze, his shorter hair on the edges cooling him off, and when he turned to Darcy, she was staring at him with a concentrated, heavy look of dread. Phil stuck his tongue out at her. 

“Push harder!” she commanded Dan, and Phil threw his head back and laughed.

The blue sky wavered above them as he was momentarily parallel to the ground. Phil glanced over at her again. She was practically willing herself higher into the air, with an accompanying grunt at the top of the upswing. He couldn‘t resist. “I’m going to beat you!” Phil teased. “I am!”

“Not! Dan, push _push push!_ ” Darcy wailed.

Eventually, Phil lost. Lost was a strong word. He gave up momentum for good reasons. Dan‘s competitiveness, matched with his own, might cause them to launch tiny Darcy higher in the air than she had ever been. The fantasy of Dan’s worst case scenario - a missing Darcy -- was nowhere near the much more actual fear of explaining a scraped knee or twisted ankle after a fall off the swings. When he stopped swinging and came to rest in the pit, Phil kicked his feet into the soft white sand, head hung in fake disappointment. “Oh, Darcy, poor Phil,” said Dan. He gripped the rubber lines of her swing and slowed her down considerably. When Phil looked up at her, face contorted into his best pout, Darcy was coming to rest, and smiling at him, one cheek tucked behind her clenched fist on the chain. _Tiny evil troll,_ he thought, _too pure for this world._

“I’ll beat you on the gym,” cried Phil and ran toward it at a very slow loping gait, and she squawked loudly, cried out for Dan to follow her. 

An hour at the park wore Darcy’s silent composure down. Sometimes she walked in front of them, sometimes between them. At one point Dan walked down to the vendors and got a small bottle of bubbles, and that led to chases after bubbles along the walking path, as well as breathy bubble blowing toward the trees and shrubs. Darcy sometimes asked them questions -- _what’s that? can I pet that man’s dog? do trees get cold?_ \-- and they answered as best they could. 

Once, so spontaneously that Phil nearly jumped out of his skin, Darcy broke out into song as they walked down toward the water of the central pond, “One, two, three, four, five -- once I caught a fish alive! Six, seven, eight, nine, ten -- then I let it go again!”

Phil stopped in his tracks. How did one respond to that? Just when he thought he knew a good fish knock knock joke that might do the trick, he heard Dan sing out in response, “Why did you let it go? BECAUSE IT BIT MY FINGER SO!” He wiggled his eyebrows at Phil when he bent down and joined in with Darcy after a moment of prompting, “Which finger did it bite? C’mon, Darcy, which finger did it bite? This little finger on the right!” They sang the last line together and hooked pinky fingers for a moment. Phil shook his head in silent wonder.

The gym was interesting, but they had to stand back and carefully observe Darcy playing on it. Both Dan and Phil were too tall to use the wooden bridge to go down the slide properly or to use the chained tire without bending themselves into pretzels to get a leg through. The idea that they were outdistancing Dil in the Sims -- after all, playing on the equipment only allowed if a Sim befriends a child -- made him both smirky and happy. It was an odd feeling. They might not destroy her emotional aura in one fell swoop, after all.

Just before they left the park, they each got a small flavored ice from the vendors. Darcy dipped her spoon in only a few times, while the men ate half of theirs, but it was enough to get three tongues stained with their respective flavors. They took turns showing the colors to each other. Phil texted a photo of Darcy poking out her purple tongue to Louise with the caption, _we’re corrupting your child one meal at a time._ Dan scooped her up and offered her a ride on his shoulders on the walk back, and Phil texted a photo of Darcy’s blue dress ballooned over Dan’s shoulders, the red hoodie crinkled beneath his arms where her little white shoes were locked between Dan’s arms and his ribs, with the caption _Dan has suddenly developed a rather disturbing growth._

They stopped at the loo on the way into the flat. Lunch was apples and toast and a bit of cheese that Dan had purchased especially for Darcy. She seemed to like it when he frowned as Phil sniffed the cheese and gagged and turned away, so he did it twice. Dan set up Hello Kitty next to her on the couch as he scrolled through their Netflix queue, and once again, none of the animes seemed to suit. They ended up watching some children’s movie about a rather large Great Dane and his adventures in California. By the time the dog was being chased by a bee through the park -- Phil thinking, _I share an affinity with this gigantic dog_ \-- Darcy was sound asleep. Dan slipped off the sofa, and tucked Darcy in with a small blanket. Phil refused to allow Dan to tweet a photo of Darcy curled up against the pillow with her thumb in her mouth, not even for old times’ sake. 

They retreated to Dan’s bedroom for an hour of blessed silence. 

It was stressful, Phil considered, managing a child’s needs, wants, and desires. It was harder than controlling the fake lives of the Sims, and there was not an easy tool to show you whether or not the bladder was in the red, or if Darcy was hungry, or if she would die if she didn’t get some rest. Not literally die, he knew, but make the kind of sad impression on her psyche that would haunt her memories for years, and Phil absolutely would never stand to cause such a thing.

Phil and Dan scrolled through their respective feeds on their laptops in well-earned silence, Phil propped with three pillows against the headboard while Dan rested on his stomach at the foot. It was the comfortable silence of five years of living with another introvert. Each may have dozed for a bit. For all their joking about fitness, the worst sensation went beyond sore muscles and skin reddened by a morning in the sun. Constantly watching over a little creature who was entirely dependent on them drained them both of energy, a subtle leech that naps could combat but never fully cure. 

“At least a hamster would stay in a cage,” Phil murmured at one point. “Wouldn’t have to worry about it so.”

A deep sigh from the end of the bed. “We’re not getting a hamster, Phil.”

In the early afternoon Louise texted both of them -- _Matt out of surgery, successful pin placement in his leg, everything well!_ \-- and then, a few minutes on, as she was reading earlier messages, Dan’s phone beeped in quick succession -- _thanks for letting her send Daddy these emojis, he’ll love them._ Suddenly Phil’s phone began chirping as well -- _flavored ice is the best! I want to be corrupted! I volunteer as tribute!,_ and finally _better get that growth checked lolzor._

Phil and Dan broke from their browsing positions, checked on Darcy, went to the toilet and tidied the kitchen, and padded silently back to Dan’s room. A new series of texts to both of them from Louise betrayed the deep emotion of the woman who had sent it -- _THANK YOU you’re the best of friends to take her at such short notice, I cannot even say how much it means to us, got me crying a bit now, love love love love, love to infinity,_ \-- and Phil felt the tears prick at the corners of his eyes again as he thought how brave Louise truly was, to travel hours to be with her former husband, to leave her child, to help Matt and his mum through the surgery, to bear up under the weight of it all. Dan texted back -- _glad to hear about Matt, we expect payment you derp, one hundred pounds a day, also we may ask an estimate for repainting as your child‘s flatulence PEELS PAINT,_ and Phil rolled his eyes and texted on his own phone -- _we’re happy that we haven’t accidentally hurt her or lost her, thank you L, get some sleep, please ignore D as you know he’s an ass._

Another fifteen minutes, and Dan raised his head from browsing with his chin cupped between two fingers, ear bent toward the door. “Did you hear that?” he murmured. Phil had not heard it, but he was unsurprised that Dan was attuned to each small noise. Phil sat straight up in his bed and began saving and closing documents on the Mac. Their peaceful sojourn was apparently over.

There was a slight sound from the hall, a thump, and then Darcy peeked her head around the door. She watched them without speaking for a moment. “What’re you doing, Darcy?” asked Phil finally.

“Nothing,” she said, and shrugged.

“What do you want to do?”

Darcy’s face scrunched up and then she said carefully, “We’ve gone outside. Can we play inside?”

Dan startled as Phil clapped his hands together loudly. “Darcy,” cried Phil, “you’ve asked the right question. Do you like games?” Darcy shrugged. Phil thought of the many board games stuffed in the office closet. Some of them were beyond the capability of a four-year old. But he remembered a few of the easier computer games. “We could crush you at some Bishi Bashi.”

“Phil, stop,” Dan’s eyes narrowed dangerously and Phil couldn’t contain a small laugh behind his hand, tongue poked mischievously out. Darcy giggled and swung her body on the door frame using the tips of her fingers. “Come on, Darcy, we’re going to go upstairs. Now, promise us that you won’t go up these stairs without us, yeah?” Within a few moments they were headed up the stairs, Dan’s hands invisibly corralling Darcy, with Phil trailing along behind them. Darcy batted Dan’s hands away as he tried to shield her against the railing. 

Gaming in the afternoon turned out to be just the trick for taking up the space of a few hours. Phil was extraordinarily happy to see Darcy’s interaction with their selection of computer games. They sat her on the futon sofa between them, and Phil accurately guessed that Bishi Bashi would hold her attention with its bright, colorful graphics, in their quick changes, and sporting simple games that they could try and discard quickly. Darcy loved to hit the X and Y buttons. Dan and Phil shouted encouragement and trash talked each other during each game. Eventually even Darcy screamed at the screen as she tried to win. _Another proper part of the Dan and Phil household,_ thought Phil ruefully, _winners welcome._

After Bishi Bashi, Phil suggested Mario Kart, and Darcy sat back, watching raptly as Dan and Phil completed a track. It was the slowest round that Phil could remember in recent memory. There were constant questions -- _is this a real place? is that you? what’s that? is that a turtle shell? which one is you? is that you?_ \-- until they crossed the finish line one at a time and then Darcy practically roared with cheers. When she asked if she could design her own car, Phil grinned at her and handed over his controller, watching her pick a small road racer with a flower canopy. She tried to run races on some of the tracks, but it ended up as more a tutorial level than anything else. Darcy’s skills were better suited to completing simple tricks in Bishi Bashi than the complex Mario Kart track dangers and tracks. Still she began to mimic Dan and Phil’s growling, twisting, fist-shaking reactions as she prepared to cross the finish line.

When Darcy grew tired of the Mario Kart action, Dan pulled out the DDR board and they had a few rounds of easy, gentle-rhythm synth pop. Her little dress bounced and moved as Dan shouted encouragement from the futon. Darcy furiously tilted her body back and forth, side to side. “You’ve got it, you’ve got it,” cried Dan, “several ups! Left left down…. YES!” He fist-pumped, and watching him, Darcy fist-pumped, too. Phil leaned his head back against the red chair and burst into silent giggles, one hand covered half his face. “That was great!”

“Ohhh!“ Darcy collapsed in the middle of the floor, breathing hard, sprawled on her back. Her heels thumped against the hard plastic.

Phil sat forward instantly. “You fine, Darcy? Everything good?” he asked nervously.

Darcy panted dramatically several times and smoothed her dress over her stomach and legs with a groan. “I’m so tired,” she complained to the ceiling and then with both fists, she began to rub her eyes.

Phil noticed that her skin shone a bit red beneath the blonde hair, the small streaks of red descending down from her ears to her neck. Sweat dotted on her upper lip. Darcy swiped her hand across her face and partially rolled over on her side, as Phil asked her again, “Are you well, there, Darcy?”

“YES!” she bellowed at the top of her lungs. “I wish that you would… STOP! ASKING! ME!” With each word Darcy slapped both hands on the hard plastic base of the DDR board with open palms. Her little arms vibrated violently. Phil raised his eyes at Dan silently, as Dan sucked his upper lip and frowned down at her. Her little mood was swinging low, quickly and wildly. Phil racked his brain for a solution. “Aaahh,” she moaned lightly and rolled completely over, facing away from on the futon, and her little legs curled up to her chest. Dan shifted, drawing forward, his knees preparing to push his body off the cushions, but Phil put a hand on his forearm. Darcy’s little shoulders shook slightly and then with a whining moan, she hiccuped a sob.

If Phil hadn’t been sure that Dan was in pain before now, he watched his friend slump and put his own hand to cover his eyes, and he glared at Phil from between his index and middle fingers. Phil shook his head slightly. Darcy continued to moan with each jerk on the floor. After a moment or two, Phil pulled himself forward and moved his knee slightly against Dan’s in silent askance. 

Darcy sighed heavily and hiccuped again. From this angle, Phil saw that her dress was clinging to her back. The back of her neck was flushed an angry red beneath the soft dampness of her hair. Phil mimicked a cup at Dan, whose brows drew together in total confusion, and Phil put one finger in the air, pointed to himself, and mouthed, _let’s try something._

“Darcy, if we don’t want to play DDR anymore, then Dan and I are going back downstairs,” Phil said quietly. He nudged Dan off the futon, and they soon stood at the bottom of the small flight of steps for a minute quietly, Phil with a finger to his lips when Dan leaned in to begin a conversation. Dan rolled his eyes dramatically and watched Darcy swing her legs up and down, knocking them loudly against the board. 

When Darcy finally moved, she shuffled herself in a complete half-circle, from bottoms of her feet to her head now pointed at the doorway. She leaned her forehead against the inside of her elbow and sighed very hard. Phil thought that her little lungs must be getting quite the workout for someone her size. 

Nearly at eye level with her, Phil leaned a foot on one of the risers and waved his hand in the air. “You know,” he said cautiously, “I had something you could help me with, if you could manage to get up off the floor.” Talking to her sternly hadn’t worked yesterday, Phil knew, so a new tact might be needed.

Dan looked back and forth between them. He was familiar with Phil’s ideas, which had distracted him from minor existential crises, which had sometimes stopped him from falling into a deeper contemplation. Phil prayed silently that this idea would work. He had the suspicion that Darcy’s heart wasn’t quite as troubled by abstract thinking as it was by something physical. She was sweating so much after DDR. Phil remembered that she had barely touched her iced treat at the park, and then she had only sipped a bit of water at lunch. 

“Perhaps you could help?” he prodded again.

Darcy shrugged, her wet hair clinging to her temples as she moved, and then said, “What about Dan?” One fist unclenched and pointed hesitantly at Dan.

Phil scratched his chin for a moment. “This is rather the type of thing that Dan doesn’t like to do,” responded Phil. He pointed down the hall at the tall leaves of his corner plant. “Dan hates my plants. Well, not hates… but he says that I’m obsessed with them. I’m really looking forward to having some help watering them. Maybe… you could help?” Phil gave her his best pleading look, and punctuated it with a high-pitched beg of “Please, please, please?” Through his half-closed eyes, he watched as Darcy heaved herself up onto her arms. 

Dan made himself scarce as they walked around the flat. Phil had filled a glass of water for Darcy and a glass of water for the plants, but he instructed her on the specific amounts that each of the plants needed from either cup. As they watered, Phil told her quietly about each plant’s name -- _planty, plant susan_ \-- and when he had bought it, how it grew, and what type of care it needed. Darcy watched him silently as he described the plants in the apartment. When he poured nearly half a cup into the hall plant, he asked her to show the plant how to soak it in, and she had sipped several times, face angled over the edge of the container. The red-flowered plant received a quarter of a cup, as did Darcy, who agreed with Phil that it was a female plant. By the time they’d wandered into Phil’s bedroom to water the cacti and succulents, only a few drops were needed, and Darcy had finished drinking the cup in her hand. Phil helped her drop a few droplets around the base of each cactus. 

When Phil brought her back into the lounge, Dan looked up from his browsing position, and said gently, “You look less flustered.” 

Darcy sprawled against the chaise and answered, “I feel better.“ Phil sighed, rocked back on his heels and cursed himself for not remembering that she was just a little slip of a child, that she needed to hydrate as much as any plant. Phil prided himself on taking care of his plants. How could he have forgotten to watch over Darcy? _Gone tomorrow,_ he reminded himself, _don’t have to worry about failing to keep her alive and happy past tomorrow._

Phil ran a hand down the back of the blue dress. “Let’s get you changed out of these damp clothes,” he suggested, and Dan seized the Hello Kitty bag again, rummaging until his hands came up with a small pair of black cotton pants and a little purple and white shirt. Darcy pulled her dress over her head in Dan’s bedroom and twisted herself into the fresh clothes by herself. When she handed him the dress, Phil squeezed the blue fabric as he passed it back to Dan. Dan shook his head when he sniffed the dress collar. He wrinkled his nose. After a morning walking and running in the park and an afternoon partially dancing on the board at DDR, the sweaty blue dress was tossed into the wash basket. Phil lifted the lid and saw their t-shirts covered by the soft cotton of the dress. Her little bodice was so small compared to their adult sizes.


	6. Chapter 6

Dinner consisted of take-away pizza and watching the rest of the Great Dane movie on the lounge sofa, Darcy tucked between them with a Ribena and a small slice curled in the gap between her crossed knees. They made commentary on the film as they ate, including Darcy asserting that she definitely wanted a Great Dane while Dan insisted that a smaller dog, say a pug, would be perfect for Louise’s home. Phil smirked and shook his head. 

Each time that Darcy took a tiny bite from her slice, chewing hard and swallowing loudly, the corner of Phil’s mouth lifted. “Have you ever had Texas BBQ pizza?” Phil asked her. Darcy shook her head, looked up at him, her jaw working. “Rate it out of ten,” commanded Phil. From the corner of his eye, Dan rocked his head back and practically willed himself into another dimension. Phil ignored him.

“Um… seven? Yes, seven? NO! Eight,” she pronounced, and Phil motioned to her to raise her pizzery hands into the air as he wiped them down with a small kitchen roll cloth.

Just after the credits rolled, Dan leaned experimentally over the center cushion and took a breath. Phil prayed that the pizza would mask Darcy’s slightly malodorous funk, a faint mix of unwashed hair and stale sweat. Darcy cast her head back against the dark grey fabric and watched Dan crinkle his nose as he said, “Whew! You stink!”

“No,” said Phil quietly. He did not look up. His fingers kept searching through the Netflix queue. Now that they had watched this children’s film, some of their latest suggestions looked rather interesting. Stopping at Baymax’s puffed belly, Phil wondered if it was too narcissistic to suggest that Darcy guess which technician sounded more familiar.

Dan smirked at him and unplugged his phone from the charging cable snaking across the table. When he sat back down, Darcy whispered, “Can I send a message to Daddy?” as she watched his fingers move lightly over the screen. “Can I send him pictures?”

“No,” said Phil more emphatically than he intended. Darcy’s head whipped around him, her little mouth a slight O. Phil cringed and ran a hand through his fringe, and said, “I mean, yes, you can send pictures to your Daddy. I was talking to Dan about something else. I’m sure that you can send the pictures to Daddy. But Dan” -- he leaned his head dangerously toward Dan, whose dimple mocked him from this side as he grinned at the screen -- “is trying to get an answer about something else, and my answer is _no_.”

Phil kept browsing Netflix until Dan placed his phone on the end table. “So, Darcy,” he began casually, “I just texted Mummy. And you know what she said? She said that if we have water and towels and a willing Darcy, then a bath might be in order.” Dan raised his eyebrows at Phil over Darcy’s head. “I know we have water, and I know we have towels, but do we have a willing Darcy?”

Phil pulled his phone from his pocket and texted _I hate you_ to Louise. As she was sending him back _darling you don’t, make sure the water isn’t too hot, you’ll do fine,_ Darcy chewed the last bite of pizza and said contemplatively to Dan, “I didn’t have a bath last night. Usually I have a bath every day unless we’re on holiday or it’s a special day.” Darcy frowned into her lap and then ran a hand through her hair. She shook it vigorously as she said, “I want a bath. But… can you…?”

“What, dearest?”

“Don’t look.”

Dan frowned and scratched his head quiz ally for a moment for Darcy’s benefit. “Don’t look? I’m okay with that, we won’t look, but we might have a quick look… quickly, QUICKLY, just to make sure you don’t get soap in your eyes, yeah?”

Darcy turned her head to Phil. He gave it his best brief smile, ended with a grimace more than anything, and then gave up. “If we do anything that makes you uncomfortable, we’ll stop when you tell us,” assured Phil. 

Phil ran the bath while Dan gathered her nightdress from the bag. Phil heard him shriek from the lounge as he tested the water for the fourth time -- warm, but not scalding -- and he poured some bubbly fizz into the water as he stood to see what Dan was on about. Dan met him in the hall. He’d sprouted a Hello Kitty on his head, and for a moment, Phil thought warily that Dan was wearing Darcy’s doll on his shoulders. Then he saw the pink cloth draped on Dan’s shoulders like a cape.

Dan twirled for effect. “It’s amazing, Phil, lookit.”

Darcy peeked around his legs. “Do you like my towel?”

“Darcy,” said Dan, “if I had access to a Hello Kitty hooded towel, I’d never wash with anything else.” 

Phil studied how the little towel ended in the middle of Dan’s back, and sighed out, “There’s your Christmas gift sorted, then.”

Dan grinned at him. 

There was more than enough room for the two men to be in the bath with her if one knelt at the edge of the tub and the other handled the accessories near the sink. When they looked into the tub, it was halfway filled with water and topped with two inches of bubbles in most places. Phil bent to one knee and reached around the spigot to turn it off. He dabbled a hand back and forth, noting that the water was slightly warmer then he left it. He had Darcy test it and she pronounced it wonderful.

Off came the pants and the little shirt, plucked from the air by Dan, who handed Phil the special no-tears shampoo that Louise had packed. Phil set it on the edge of the tub as Darcy instructed solemnly, “Don’t look.” She wriggled out of her undershirt, and Phil stared at the brown and white tiles across from him, glancing resolutely at the top of her head every so often, mostly watching the dim reflection of Dan in the glass door. Phil helped her grip his elbow as she balanced on one foot to drop the underwear to their white shag bathroom rug. “Don’t look,” she repeated. 

Dan stepped forward and hooked her beneath her arms and lifted her silently over the rim of the tub, his eyes focused on her shoulders and chin. Phil plucked her undergarments up and put into a pile in the corner of the tiled floor, noting the rest of her body as a series of curved and crooked limbs as Dan swung her up and set her below the water. The water lapped slightly. The bubbles rose around her.

“I didn’t look,” Dan assured her, and Darcy murmured thanks. 

Phil used a coffee mug to scoop water over her head. By the middle of the bath, Darcy was splashing quite a bit, and she and Phil had a great time with setting her hair into a series of soapy, punky spikes twisted beneath his fingers. He wasted half the shampoo in the bottle that Louise have given them in the bag, but at worst, he thought they would buy a new bottle and replace it. It was simply too much fun to observe Darcy testing the edges of her hair with one hand and hearing her laugh as she saw her reflection in the shower door. Phil reached behind the decorative towels on the top of the cabinet and mouthed _don’t ask_ at Dan as he handed a yellow rubber duckie to Darcy, and there was several minutes of duck narration punctuated by squeaky screams. 

Once, Darcy asked for a bath bomb. Phil shrugged and tried to open the cabinet beneath the sink. Dan squawked loudly and blocked it with his shin, and Phil looked up at his frown with mild surprise. There was a furious back and forth texting session with Louise which culminated with Dan’s angry missive _just answer me!! will it cause an infection in her personal area? Louise I am not texting the word about your four-year old._ Phil heard his final squawk and Dan’s shaking hand held the phone down so Phil could twist around and read Louise's delighted response _Go ahead, My bath bombs never give her YEAST INFECTIONS in her VAGINA._ Dan’s cheeks flared into two bright spots of red that spread down his neck, and Phil could only laugh silently, collapsing back, one wet cheek squashed against his shoulder as he leaned against the side of the tub, his hands extended limply over Darcy‘s little body buried deep in the water. 

A few moments later the heavy citrusy smell of a bomb permeated the room. Darcy ran her little fingers through the yellow and orange as she made trails of scent and color.

“Describe your feelings,” said Phil.

Darcy squeezed her eyes shut and thought for a moment. “I smell like a tangerine.”

“How do you know what a tangerine is?” asked Dan from behind him curiously, and Phil grinned as her little brows knit together and she scrunched her shoulders in obvious annoyance.

“I eat them all the time! I‘m not a baby!”

Phil asked her to lift her feet and gripping each ankle, he washed between her toes, complete with squeaky noises for proper cleanliness, and he ran the flannel down her arms, and then he admonished her to scrub below the water line. When he glanced back at Dan, Dan was leaned as far against the mirror was possible, leaned away into the corner, busily re-arranging the small toiletries, towel, and clothing on the sink. He took the mug and rubber duck from Phil to add to the pile. Only the sounds of Darcy humming to herself and scrubbing punctuated their silence. From seemingly nowhere, Dan produced a black sharpie and wrote _Phil_ on the underside of the rubber duck. Phil hissed at him silently, and Dan lifted one eyebrow slowly.

Finally Phil examined Darcy’s fingers, turned them to and fro in the light, and showed them to Dan. “Is she all pruney yet?” he asked thoughtfully.

“Yeah, think so.”

“Final rinse, let’s go.” 

Dan turned on the fan, which began to rattle slightly as it picked up speed, and Phil reached in and pulled the plug on the tub drain with a popping sound. The bubbles began to drain away. Darcy tucked her knees to her chin as the water swirled and glugged down the drain. One long blonde curl flopped over her left eye.

Phil said gently, “Now you’re going to be stood, and I’ll turn on the head for you. I’m not looking.” Phil scrunched his eyes nearly closed and turned on the water to the shower head. The warm water struck him a moment later, splattering his t-shirt from the shoulder up. Phil squinted up at the fall of water. It was angled so high for he and Dan to use, and now it fell over Darcy’s little body like a heavy rain from above. He peeked slightly, caught a glimpse of Darcy putting each limb and then her whole torso into the stream, dipped her head down and let the water run through her hair, and Phil quickly resumed staring at the tiled backsplash. Her little form moved just at the edge of his peripheral vision. 

He knew that she was as safe as kittens with he and Dan, and but he also knew that Darcy’s privacy was important to her. It was not proper to joke with her about her admonitions not to look at her while they bathed her. Not great to joke about such an important thing. Otherwise, in ten years, he couldn’t look her in the face. Everyone had the unequivocal right to request consent, even if tiny and helpless and fiercely proud.

“Ready to get out?” Phil murmured softly. Darcy swallowed a bit of the falling water and spit it out against the tiled wall, and then nodded as she moved back to the end of the tub. 

“All right then,” Phil leaned up and turned off the spray. 

In the quiet dripping silence, Dan draped her little towel over Phil’s shoulder and a towel for Phil over the other shoulder. Phil looked at him sternly, and Dan mouthed _just do it_. To make time, studying Darcy from the corner of his eye, Phil scrubbed his hair and his shoulders with his towel then tossed it to the floor. Then he draped Darcy’s towel over her head, and Phil carefully rubbed tightly the tiny curls with the pink fabric. It absorbed surprisingly well. Phil dropped the cloth between them, and wrapped her little body in, and Darcy took over with some vigorous wipes on her arms and legs. Finally he twisted it around and draped the top of the soft hood of Hello Kitty, now a darker water-logged pink, over the top of her head. 

Suddenly Darcy reached down and found little loops on the inside of the two corners near her arms. They had been invisible during Dan’s modeling session of the towel, but now they allowed Darcy to cross her arms and pull the corners entirely over her front, the bottom corner trailing in the drying bottom of the tub. She swaddled in puffy pink Hello Kitty fabric from chest to ankles. Ingenious! Phil thought. 

That was what he was thinking when he lifted himself from his knee, one leg bracing against the floor as he rose, and tucked his hands under her armpits, and her little legs curled up as he raised her over the lip of the tub, _if I search for a Hello Kitty towel for Dan then it’ll have to be two meters long and two meters wide to enclose him_ , and he smiled absently at her, and then Phil’s foot slipped on the wet towel on the floor. 

Things happened so fast. There was the wild sensation of the world tilting, the moment when he was aware that he was going to fall if he didn’t stop himself. His toes jammed against the tub. Phil cried out, “Shit!” as the pain radiated up his foot. He felt his other foot slide dangerously to the side. The water on the floor was a slippery, slippery mess. He heard himself yelp, a high pitch that echoed in the small bathroom. 

_Don’t you dare drop her!_

Suddenly Dan caught his back, fingers grasping his t-shirt, and lifted him bodily, stopping his slide to one side. Dan had stepped forward and thrown himself against Phil, and Phil glanced back at Dan, caught a moment of Dan’s wide brown eyes over his shoulder. He brought his arms to his chest. Darcy went with him. One of her little legs was dangling out to the side. Even as he was moving his arms to his chest, Phil’s eyes fell on her foot, and he tried to move her away at the last moment. His effort was too late. The sharp smack of her skin on the shower door echoed in the room. It was followed almost instantly by a hissing intake of breath against his neck and then Darcy's screech at his throat, and then quick sobs punctuated by squirming in the towel.

Dan said, “You okay, mate?” to Phil. Phil’s heart thudded. He could hear his breath rasping in his chest. Darcy’s cries increased in volume and intensity. He took a deep shuddering gasp. 

Phil whispered into Darcy’s hair incoherently, _it’s okay, it’s okay, all okay,_ even as his weight shifted forward onto the balls of his own feet again. He set her down, and when Phil wiped her hair back from her forehead, Darcy let loose a proper scream, red-faced with tears rolling down her face. Phil felt a hard sharp tug deep inside him. _I'm so clumsy, look what I've done._

Phil stumbled away from her and leaned against the door. Dan took his place, bending down and wiping tears with the edge of her pink towel. Dan lifted the injured foot as she hiccuped and squalled. While Dan tested it gingerly, Phil smacked his face on the sides with open palms, muttering to himself with increasing anger. Why did he have to be so stupid? He was clumsy. Not a week went by without a trip over a nonexistent crack in the pavement, nor a broken bowl or plate or cup, nor an electronic device of some sort being banged up. Phil felt his heart twist. Why lift her out when he knew how wet the bath had become? It would have taken only a moment to wipe things down and shove the towel into the corner before lifting her. She had been perfectly safe in the bath. She had been perfectly safe when Dan had set her in. _He was right there,_ thought Phil miserably, _why didn’t I make him just lift her out?_

By the time that Darcy had calmed down enough to be stood in the corner opposite the door, Dan looked back at him once. “Phil?” said Dan gently. “Phil, hand me her knickers and shirt.” Phil wiped one cheek furiously and sorted through the clean clothes on the sink. When Dan took them, his little finger dragged down the back of Phil‘s hand, but Phil turned away, stared at the crack of the bathroom door. 

Dan lifted one edge of the pink towel and helped Darcy step into her knickers. A quick pull and tug, and they were on, but still Darcy held her little foot cocked at an odd angle. The skin was rapidly darkening into a bruise. Phil let out another torturous breath as he noticed the purplish mark. Dan flattened up the arm holes and shrugged the little undershirt down over her head, switching out Hello Kitty for a moment. Darcy sniffled and wiped her nose with one hand. Now she was not making a peep about Dan seeing her unclothed, but her tears were still mewling through her at odd times. Phil shuddered a bit and coughed against the sharp pain in his throat. The little nightgown was next, a quick drape and its scalloped edges barely touched the floor. Even as Phil watched, she reached back for her towel and Dan draped her again in its secure warmth.

“Let’s see now,” Dan murmured, and held the bottom of Darcy’s foot in his hand, twisting her ankle this way and that. “Will you walk on it, then? Does it hurt?” Darcy gingerly set it down and moved it. “Let’s go out to the lounge, then, and see what that foot’s on about.”

Phil bolted through the door ahead of them and was in the kitchen when they passed. Dan gave him a pointed look and pointed toward the lounge above Darcy’s little head. Darcy was limping. Phil narrowed his eyes and shook his head. He retreated further into the kitchen, leaning his full weight on the sink and rattling the cabinet helplessly as he rested his head against the white doors.

From the lounge, he heard Dan say quietly, “See? I think it’s a bruise.” They continued, a slow steady hum in the background, the light cadence of Dan’s voice rising and falling. From Darcy, Phil heard nothing.

A few minutes later Dan called, “Phil…. Phil? Phil?!” Phil knew that sound. Dan would get progressively louder, in that honeyed voice, not quite insisting but never giving up. Phil sighed, flexed his fingers against the cabinet until the nails burned, let go and walked around to the lounge. 

Dan was sat with his legs up on the long chaise, Darcy in the middle with her little pink Hello Kitty towel, and a clear empty space at the end for him. Phil reluctantly navigated his way around to flop down on the sofa. He didn’t look directly at Darcy, but all too soon, Darcy lifted her foot from the towel’s crossed folds and pointed at the top of her foot. “It’s a bruise!” she announced. Phil glanced at the small black shape, perhaps the size of a large coin, and shuddered.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Darcy said, and then glanced at Dan, who nodded sagely. “Not anymore.” Phil glared at him over Darcy’s head. Dan shrugged one shoulder. “I can walk on it,” she said. Phil swallowed against the lump in his throat at the sound of her little rehearsed speech.

“I’m sorry for that,” Phil choked out, head tilted toward her knee. He almost sounded as he did when his laryngitis flared up after an illness. Phil swallowed and couldn’t make himself say anything else. What else was there to say? Louise and Matt had trusted them, and Phil hadn’t exactly lived up to that promise. 

Darcy regarded him without responding. Finally, she looked at the bruise again. “Dan says that I might be a bulbasaur,” she said softly, “but I don’t know what that is.”

“You don’t?’

“No.”

Phil leaned over the edge of the couch and retrieved a small plushie. He held the green and purple furry shape against her pink clad knee. “This is a bulbasaur,” he said, walking it up to her elbow and shaking it at her slightly, “and it is highly doubtful that you’re going to grow a flower out of your bruise, but if you do, please do it in our flat. I’d love to see it.” 

He took off his right sock and wiggled his toe experimentally. There was a bloody outline at the tip of his toenail. Darcy looked at it, and asked, “Does your foot hurt?”

Phil shrugged, and leaned back into the cushions, and then glanced at her. “Not at all. Bit of blood can’t hurt me now. You see, I’m already a bulbasaur. I’ve already bloomed.”

Darcy squinted at Phil’s toe as Dan muttered, “That‘s not true!”

Phil balanced his index fingers together beneath his chin. “It is true,” he said immediately and softly. He leaned in and told her conspiratorially in a whisper, “Dan is insanely jealous of my being a bulbasaur.” He toed the other sock off and dumped them unceremoniously to the lounge floor next to the sofa. 

When Darcy looked pointedly at them and then back at him, Phil said, “Bulbasaurs can do whatever they want.”

Darcy grinned. Phil leaned his head back against the sofa and from the corner of his eye a Dan-shaped form smirked and tried to hide a smile. _Best leave her to Dan,_ Phil decided, _keep her well and happy, and no more bruises._


	7. Chapter 7

While Darcy dried, Dan switched on Big Hero Six, and they watched the first part of it. Eventually Darcy threw off her Hello Kitty hoodie towel, and both Dan and Phil got up with her to walk around a bit, work out if the foot was sore. When Darcy forgot about it, she walked on it normally. They each retrieved a cup of water. Darcy begged for and got a handful of crisps. Phil looked critically at the chocolate horde in the upper cupboard, and even after Dan shook his head vigorously, Phil took down one chocolate bar for Darcy. 

A bit hyped on the sugar, Darcy explored the apartment with one of them always in tow, Dan explaining the Guild Wars shrine or the plushies, or Phil pulling off the photos to show to her. Darcy walked around and listened raptly to all their words. One at a time they left her. Dan took a shower. Phil sat at the table with Darcy on the sofa, trying to concentrate on his open browsing window, but really silently clawing at one knee while Dan was showering. Darcy played gently with Hello Kitty and didn’t seem the worse for wear. Then Phil was last more than an hour later, all the hot water gone. He stood in the chilly stream and traced his fingers against the sharp indentation of the glass bevel and cursed his lack of luck. Phil finally got his contacts out and put on his black glasses. He wrapped his toe in a small Pikachu Band-Aid and padded back into the lounge.

Louise texted them as they were settling down to watch the rest of Big Hero Six, and Phil read it silently as Darcy marveled over Honey’s superhero purse with its bright gumballs of death and Dan insisted that the next song was the best -- _doctors say no more surgery until next week, Matt insisting I come home, will text train arrival in the morning._ Phil texted Dan a new message -- _don’t tell Darcy, it’ll be a surprise for her_ \-- and Dan nodded silently from the other end of the sofa. He stretched out in his gray t-shirt, folded his long legs in his trackies, and Phil slumped back on the other side. Darcy grabbed the blue galaxy pillow and lay it down on Dan’s leg as a support, and eventually pushed one foot underneath Phil‘s thigh. Leaned over, she watched as the technicians spoke, and her eyes widened first at Phil and then above her head at Dan. She insisted that on a few viewings of those scenes.

By half nine, Darcy was sucking on her thumb and curled into a ball between them, her eyes slipped shut every few blinks. Silently both Dan and Phil got up and retrieved their laptops. In the hall, Dan touched his forearm and murmured, “You didn’t mean to--” but Phil raised his hand away and shook his head, kept his chin down as he walked to his bedroom to unplug his Mac. Dan drummed an unknown tune against the wall as he walked away.

For a while, they scrolled and typed, each working on projects, ideas for the radio show, and browsing the internet. At one point, Dan covered Darcy with the blanket from the back of the sofa, and she slept between them. Finally, when Darcy stirred and rolled off the sofa, making for the hall with Dan practically tripping all over himself to escort her, Phil looked critically at the small stack of sheets on the blue dining chair. He rubbed his hair, adjusted his glasses, and thought deeply. 

The toilet flushed far away. A few moments later Darcy came back first, and as he walked through the door behind her, Dan peered around and said, “I’d thought that you’d have the sofa made up for her by now, Phil.”

Phil took a deep breath and tugged at the old t-shirt. “If you want, Darcy, since you slept with me last night-” began Phil, and Dan stopped as though he’d been struck in the side by a mallet. “You might sleep in my bed with me again.” Phil leaned his elbows on his knees and rubbed his hand against his cheek, darting his gaze to her experimentally. 

Darcy regarded him for a moment. She reached out and pulled Hello Kitty from the couch as she asked, “What about Dan?”

“Dan has his own bed. If you want, you can sleep with Dan tonight.” Behind her, Dan grimaced and shook his head, vigorously drawing a line across his throat. Phil’s mouth quirked on one side. Phil looked over at the windows, and continued, “If last night you were rousted out by the lights outside, it won’t do to have you wandering round like a tiny terror at all hours tonight. You’ll want to pick one of us.” 

Darcy thought for a moment, and she squeezed Hello Kitty to her chin. Phil had a few blessed moments to think that she’d actually pick Dan, but she turned to him and said, “I’ll stay with you.”

He pursed his lips once and when he looked at Dan, he only met raised eyebrows, so he looked down and said, “Then let’s go.” 

Phil shut off the television, turned out the lights, and tidied slightly while Dan set her up in Phil’s bedroom, carrying bags and making one final trip for a bit of water. When he came down the hall, Dan leaned into him and whispered, “You shouldn’t have offered if you didn’t want it picked up.”

Phil frowned at him. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he answered.

It was surprisingly easy to make Darcy into another element of his landscape, like his Pikachu plushie or the set of books on the bureau. Phil worked on his laptop as he lay on the bed and Darcy settled down. Like the previous evening, it took her several minutes of snuffling beneath the covers, lifting the pillow and patting. She did not talk to him while she was arranging the covers and pillow to her liking, and he did not interrupt while Darcy whispered into Hello Kitty’s ears. When it appeared that she was going to drift away, Phil turned off all the lights and snuggled under his spare blanket with the glow of the screen reflecting in his glasses. It was barely past eleven, probably long past her bedtime, but still hours too early for Phil to sleep. Hopefully she would sleep while he worked, two beings in one space, and if she slept, Phil knew that he wouldn’t have any reason to worry about her.

After a few minutes, Darcy yawned loudly and announced, “I’m sleepy.” Phil nodded noncommittally and stayed focused on the screen in front of him. Darcy asked him, “How old are you, Phil?“

“I’m an ancient creature, born of darkness, from the foundations of space and time. Bwah ha ha!”

Darcy didn’t respond for several long moments, and Phil knew that his joking had failed terribly -- again. “But really, how old are you, Phil?”

Phil pressed his lips together. “Old enough.“

“I’m four. Mummy’s forty.” Phil blinked at the laptop screen and thought, _that’s not true,_ but he didn’t try to say anything else. From the corner of his eye, he saw Darcy’s shoulders shift every time her head drooped, and each time he hoped she’d finally fallen asleep.

“Do you have Mummy’s phone number?” Phil set aside his computer and retrieved the phone. For several minutes, Darcy texted emojis to Louise. Phil only took the phone back from her when it slipped out of her hands as she snuggled against the pillow.

He drew the cover over her shoulder and whispered, “That‘s enough of that. Go to sleep now.”

“Night, Phil.”

Phil swallowed and looked down at her. She’d turned away, a dune in a sea of purple, but her little head was turned up to the ceiling and her right eye was carefully watching him. “Good night, Darcy. Sleep well.”

A few moments passed. “Phil?”

A sharp stabbing pain began behind his right eye. “Yes, Darcy?” _Go to sleep! Please!_

“If I asked you a question, would you tell me the truth?” He felt the small vibration of her little knees bouncing against the mattress beneath the covers.

Phil frowned at the Google doc open in front of him. Where was this going? And, most irritatingly, why wasn’t Dan around to distract her? He scrunched his face thoughtfully and then said, “I will. I’ll try to tell you the truth, as much as I know it.”

There was a heavy sigh. The entire duvet deflated next to him. When she shuffled her feet, she turned her her head back down into the pillow and her voice was almost too muffled for him to hear her. “Is Daddy going to die?”

Suddenly he couldn’t see the screen anymore. His fingers froze over the keys. What did one tell her? Phil couldn’t truthfully tell her _of course not don’t be foolish,_ because who know what would happen in Exeter over the next few days or weeks? But he was also fairly sure that the second night of an unplanned trip to the home of two men whom she barely knew was the wrong environment to launch into a treatise on life and death, survival and grief. He wouldn't do what Dan might do, panic and begin to mumble about inevitability. How scared must this little girl be? Not even when Louise had been in their flat had Phil heard any talk about how badly Matt was hurt. Louise has always texted, never spoken it. It was an invisible unseen force in Darcy’s mind. He remembered her screams of frustration and her screams of fear, and her few moments of joyous abandonment on the swings and at Bishi Bashi, and how she ate carefully, never taking a lot, always sipping a little water at a time, both hands clasped tightly around the cup. This world was so large. She was so small.

Darcy shuffled again, and Phil finally said, “I don’t know, Darcy.” He could not make his numb lips work again. His throat seemed to have closed. When he heard her squeeze the pillow as tightly to her ear as possible, and then a few little sniffles as she rubbed her nose on the cloth, he wasn’t mad. Phil leaned out one hand to her shoulder and rubbed slightly up and down, the space of his hand, over and over again. Darcy began crying into his pillow. Phil couldn’t think of anything that would take her pain. He was barely able to tolerate it for the few minutes that it happened. Every time when Phil opened his mouth to speak gently to her, the words died in his throat. In his head they sounded so inconsequential. Then, as quickly as she had begun crying, this bout ended. 

Darcy gave three or four shuddering breaths in a few short moments, and then she stretched as hard as she could. Every muscle in Darcy’s body stiffened. Phil took his hand away and moved it back to the keyboard, then threw back the blanket and set the laptop up on the stand. He pulled several tissues for himself and for Darcy, walked over to her side of the bed, and clutched the tissue as he knelt down. Phil made her blow her nose noisily into his pinched fingers, and smoothed an errant strand of hair over her ear. In the dim light, she didn’t look at him as she tried to catch her breath. He blew his own nose. Darcy didn’t seem to appreciate it when he offered her the used tissue to put into her pocket -- _another spectacular misstep by Phil Lester, ladies and gentlemen_ \-- so Phil frowned and threw the tissues into the bin. Phil climbed back into his side of the bed and brought the Mac back to his chest. For another moment or two, she settled, and as she slumped this time, Darcy’s breathing slowly evened out. As she dropped away into sleep, Phil ran the back of his hand over her cap of blonde curls one last time.

When Phil finally put the laptop away, he had some trouble going to sleep and when he did sleep, he dropped into dreams at an unsteady pace, the faint track of tears still sticky on his cheeks, and then

\--he was across at the windows while Darcy and Dan were sat in the lounge, and he was frantically using masking tape to cover the windows and keep out the light, and Darcy’s job was to tell him where to cover the cracks, and Dan’s job was apparently to repeat Darcy’s Sims bar, _she’s uncomfortable Phil hurry it up, she’s hungry feed her Phil, she’s dirty don’t drop her in the bath Phil Jesus Christ_

\--then he was swimming in Florida, but the shoreline was so far away, and his Mum trailed her hand in the water as she drifted by in a boat, saying, “You have to climb into the boat, Phil, it’s so much easier in the boat--” but he opened his mouth to say that it was so hard to climb, and Dan appeared over her shoulder and smiled at him over the edge of the decking, and his mum said, “See? Dan can climb in, why can‘t you?” and the water came in to his mouth, and then 

He woke once in the middle of the night, dark hair askew as he ran a hand through it, and Darcy still sound asleep against next to him. His heart was pounding. Finally, taking a deep breath, Phil concentrated on the sound of Darcy’s even breaths and willed himself back to sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

The rattling of the air conditioning unit woke him, but he was aware, even with his eyes shut, that something else was happening. _Coffee,_ thought Phil, _coffee will make all the world better._

Suddenly a finger poked his face. It moved his hawk-like nose to one side slowly and then released it back to its normal position just as slowly. Phil stamped down his need for caffeine and the insistent urge to go back to sleep, remembered Darcy put in his bed to sleep last night, and peeked one eye open at her. She was sat up on her side of the bed, legs tucked under her, hair corkscrewed out in ridiculous messy curls, one hand poking him in the face.

Without opening his eyes, he groaned and shifted, rolled his shoulders from one side to another. Through the slit of vision, he saw Darcy rock back on her thighs and her smile suddenly appeared. Her eyes drifted down his face to his chest and back up as she wrapped her arms around her knees. Her little eyebrows wrinkled and then rose.

“Knock knock!” She startled, and then rubbed her nose with one finger. He tried again. “Knock knock!”

“Who’s there?”

“Boo.”

Darcy cocked her head and watched him warily. “Boo who?”

“Darcy, stop crying.”

Those little blue eyes flew wide and then she had to cover her mouth with her hands. 

Phil brought his hands up behind his head and crossed his arms, shifting the pillow underneath him, eyes still mostly closed. He peeked at the clock. It was a little past eight. Distantly Phil heard a siren. It must have woken Darcy. By now, both he and Dan had regulated passing sirens to a dim part of London’s sound cacophony. But for Darcy, living in a more rural neighborhood, each harsh sound must be startling. He remembered her little hand clenching against the glass of the lounge window as she banged on it. Phil stretched his hips and legs beneath the cover and wished warily that the damn things would have started later in the day.

“Knock knock!”

“Who’s there?” from behind her wall of fingers.

“You!”

“ _Phil!_ ”

“That’s not how it goes.”

A few long moments passed, and she gave in. “You who?”

“Yoohoo, yoohoo, yoohoo cried the ambulance!” His sing-song seemed to please her. Phil kept his eyes slotted open so he could see her reaction as he raised one eyebrow in her direction. Darcy flung herself back to the other pillow and laughed. Dan would be groaning at Phil’s seemingly endless supply of knock-knock jokes, but to her, Phil was glad to find, they were light-hearted. He hoped to scrub away all her old thoughts and tears, all her fears pushed aside with a few moments of laughter, the only comfort he could give to her.

Phil sat up and rubbed his eyes. He put his glasses on as he asked her, “What time does a duck wake up?” As she contemplated it, Phil swung his legs out of bed and stretched again, his back popping loudly, walking around to her side of the bed. The clock mocked him. Dan, in his own room, might be conked out for hours. This was a bit early for Phil to be woke but it felt lighter, somehow, to hear Darcy laughing a bit rather than weeping into her pillow. Finally Darcy shrugged, and Phil stood next to her side of the bed, and snickered, “At the quack of dawn!” 

“You’re silly,” Darcy informed him.

“ _You’re silly,_ ” Phil answered and flared his nostrils several times at her as he leaned over her with a hand on his hip. She bit her lip and tried not to smile. Phil thought, _if you don’t try so hard, if you just think, she’s a little creature who needs cared for and you can do this, the fear in your heart burns less bright._

“Do you want to come and help me get some coffee on?” Phil flopped on the end of the bed past her feet, leaning on one arm, and Darcy kicked him away from beneath the duvet. He smiled at her. “Or should we have a bit of a lie-in and not get up?”

“I have to go to the loo,” Darcy replied. She lifted her little head and watched her own feet appear from beneath the blankets, one at a time as she twisted her own ankles. “Can we take the duvet?”

Phil frowned down at her pink toes. He tried to ignore the little purple spot on the top of one foot. What was this about? “We could,” he began hesitantly, “but… if I leave the duvet on, we might cuddle up later in the morning.” Darcy wiggled her toes and tucked her feet back under the duvet. “Besides, the duvet won’t fit into the toilet. Unless you want to flush it and then you’d get sucked down into the bowl. Can you imagine--” Phil rolled onto his back and lifted the curve of it on his head, squirming and clawing at the air above himself -- “oh, Phil, help me, help me!” He glurghed dramatically as imaginary Darcy went down the bowl, holding his throat with both hands, and felt Darcy drum her heels against the mattress as she laughed lightly.

Phil sat up and looked down at her. “My feet are cold,” she pronounced. “Can I put on my shoes?”

Phil stood again, a wave of irritability overcoming him and then washing away as he silently walked to the bureau and then sorted through the top drawer. Darcy watched him from upside down as he worked. He yawned loudly as he selected and searched. Finally, when he walked from around the bureau, he told her, “Stick out your feet.” Darcy hesitated. 

Phil narrowed his eyes at her for a moment, and then said, “Don’t worry, everything’s okay, I--” he grunted slightly, “If I hurt you again, a wild bulbasaur will eat my face.” 

Darcy frowned up at him. 

Phil set his chin at an angle, drew his index finger down it, looked off at the wall and pretended to remember as he continued, “Or … a wild bulbasaur …will eat _your_ face … one of the two, I can‘t recall.” He tapped his index finger on his lip as he pretended to think hard. Darcy laughed again.

She studied him curiously until Phil bumped her feet through the purple stripes of the duvet with his knees and pointed at them as sternly as he could. Darcy complied, sweeping the blanket from her legs and raising them up toward Phil. Phil slipped two of his socks onto her feet. The sock heels struck the back of her little calves. Phil hunted through the side table and found two small document clips. He clipped the socks firmly at the back of her knees. 

“There,” Phil announced as Darcy experimentally rubbed one foot under the other one, the soft material sliding easily and silently. _Thank goodness her bruise is covered,_ Phil thought. “Describe your feelings.“

“They’re soft.“

“Stand up and let’s see.” When she gained her feet, Darcy shuffled against the carpet on purpose and looked at him with a grin. Her makeshift socks stayed up beneath the long pink nightgown. They disappeared like knee-high tights beneath her gown. 

“Warm toes? Yes? Alright then,” Phil pronounced and they went off into the hall and down to the toilet. Phil did not lift her in his arms to descend the stairs as Dan normally did, never forgetting how close he’d come to seriously harming her in the bath, but instead forced Darcy to take one step at a time with both feet while he did the same. It was the slowest procession in the world.

While Darcy was in the toilet, Phil washed his contact lenses one last time and frowned at the reflection in the mirror. He should have stopped and started the water for the coffee. Besides, he looked rough. He open his mouth and rotated his jaw, the large black frames of his glasses bobbing on his nose, moving his tongue inside one cheek and then the other, rubbing the bags beneath his eyes. Phil’s quiff soared proudly and made his forehead even more pale in contrast. Phil yawned and thought about the early morning hours that Darcy kept. He always thought his sleep schedule was fairly irregular, but with Darcy here, both he and Dan had been entirely thrown off their usual nocturnal ways. Worse, Phil realized suddenly with a start, neither he or Dan had tweeted in almost forty-eight hours. _The followers must think we’re dead,_ he thought miserably. Phil let the glasses rest on his nose again and concentrated on being responsible for Darcy for now, worrying about the fans later. He'd been so close to giving her up to Dan, but now, Phil suspected, a corner had been turned.

Darcy emerged from the toilet. Phil made her promise to stay in the bathroom while he took the quickest piss of his life. Even as he was shutting the door, he said loudly, “Hey Darcy, what’s worse than pea soup? Knock on the door if you don’t know!” A timid knock knock from the other side of the door. “Poo soup!” He heard Darcy groan. It was not entirely appropriate, Phil knew, but it kept them in contact.

By the time Phil was staring at the glass kettle fifteen minutes later, mentally willing the coffee to finish dripping, Darcy was hanging onto one of the white cabinet doors, swinging it back and forth, and Dan was still nowhere to be found. Phil drank a healthy swallow of coffee as Darcy trailed her fingers on the cabinets and doors in a broad circuit walk of the kitchen. He prepared several slices of toast and a bit of milk in the Hello Kitty mug -- _early bird and all that, Daniel_ \-- and they were soon sat on the sofa in the lounge. The anime provided only background noise as Darcy and Phil companionably ate and drank in silence. Darcy licked all the butter before eating her toast and drank the milk with small sips. Phil studied her curiously from the corner of his eye. Phil kept the cup on the center cushion between them, worried that it would spill and if they would be able to get the smell out if it did. 

Darcy lay full out on the sofa’s chaise section after she finished her meal. She put the pink pillow beneath her head and stared at the ceiling. Occasionally she watched television. Phil left her once to put a load of laundry into the machine.

An hour later, Phil heard Dan’s stumbling walk as the hall floorboards creaked just outside the lounge. He experimentally peeked around the door to the lounge and his eyes widened as he took in Phil at one end of the sofa and Darcy stretched out at the other end. Then his gaze fell on Darcy’s socks, one Spider Man and one sloth, held close to her knees with the clips. 

Phil adjusted his glasses as Dan gestured wildly at her feet. “What is all this, then?”

“Sock choice is an important part of the Dan and Phil household,” answered Phil. 

Dan laughed, his forehead braced against the door for a moment. Finally, scratching his bum through the dingy white fabric of the faded hotel robe, he wandered down to the toilet. Phil turned off the television when Dan came back and Darcy tried to climb his legs. Dan lifted her into the air and swung her around for two turns and then carried her into the kitchen, where Phil observed warily that she was sat up on the counter top as Dan closed the open cabinet doors and prepared a small breakfast for himself. It was definitely a two-cup morning. Phil poured it as Darcy’s heels made muffled bangs against the lower cabinetry. Dan talked nonsense to her, little chit-chat that Phil let wash over him with soothing sound, Darcy occasionally babbling back to him about what dreams she‘d had and if Phil had hogged the covers and whether or not it was warm outside. Once again, Phil thought about how much better at this Dan seemed to be, how much more comfortable, but he also thought that they had a companionable silence, he and the little creature.

While Phil was shuffling back to the lounge, his phone beeped slightly. The text from Louise was short and to the point -- _arriving 12:45, be there by quarter after, have my girl ready_ \-- and Phil’s eyes flicked to the clock in the corner of the screen. They had a little over three more hours with Darcy. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be seriously injured. Phil knew a sure-fire way to keep the peace.

Dan was especially eager once Phil gave him the news and the idea. “We’re having a pajama day,” Dan told Darcy. “No clothes until lunch.” Darcy ran excitedly around and Dan caught her in mid-stride, smooching against her cheek. “Did you hear that?”

“I don’t have to get dressed!” Darcy squealed to no one in particular as she ran around in the lounge.

Dan cringed slightly. “Jesus Christ, Darcy, it’s too early,” Dan whined, “….for screaming.” Darcy smiled at Phil and Phil scrunched his nose and waved her pointedly toward Dan. Darcy’s high-pitched scream caused Phil’s ears to ache, but it was worth it for the startled jerk and clenched lips that Dan showed to them both. She really did enjoy Dan, Phil saw, as he watched her beat against Dan’s legs and Dan pretended to attack in return.


	9. Chapter 9

They sat in their pajamas and did nothing of any consequence whatsoever.

For a time, there was the drawing game, which Darcy proved to be surprisingly good at considering her practice with her own crayons. Phil brought his old sketchbook out of retirement, and they sat at the dining table while the wash spun out in the kitchen. Darcy’s tongue stuck out as she concentrated on forming the complex series of shapes as Phil called them out. Each time he looked at her handiwork and compared it to Dan’s efforts, Phil was struck by how much her literalness helped her. When he said put a circle on the right, Dan tried to estimate what it could be -- a head, an ear -- and his guess influenced his results. However, Darcy stayed in the mindset of literalness. At the end, during the revelation, Phil could hold it back from his face, twist it slightly, and no matter what, he could make it out as the dog or bumblebee or Santa Clause in a Hawaiian shirt. While Dan balled up his papers and threw them into the bin -- _five points, did you see?_ \-- Phil would carefully take Darcy’s drawings and put them on the bottom of her available white paper. 

The boys played Mario Kart again. Darcy ran the track with them excitedly. Darcy had more sense of it now, but still Dan gritted his teeth every time she hit the wall and Phil smiled when she completed a successful jump. 

For the first time, the postman delivered a package. Darcy squeezed her head between the slats and Phil was confronted with her little moon face as he walked up the stairs, grimacing at Dan and flicking his eyes angrily toward Darcy, balancing the small brown package. Dan was nonplussed, muttering under his breath, _she won’t fall through the damn slats Phil_. Darcy delighted in opening the package. She was particularly enamored with the inflated bubble wrap tucked above and below Phil’s latest book. She banged it against the couch several times.

When Phil wandered down to the bathroom to finally put his contacts in, Darcy begged to watch, and pulled a very disgusted face, lips drooping at the corners, as Phil pressed the contact against his eyeball. He made sure to squelch the other contact with a great grimace and roll his eye back into his head as it went in. Darcy shuddered, and Phil laughed a bit. All the while, the dryer was drying her clothes with a steady click-click-whump as the drum spun. 

When they did finally dress, Darcy insisted that Phil’s socks stay on. Phil and Dan, too exhausted to argue, barely managed to dress themselves, only a step up from the cookie monster pajamas and Dan’s trackies to black skinny jeans, Dan’s grey t-shirt, and Phil’s Sonic t-shirt. They dressed her quickly in a red blouse and shorts, and when brushing her soft hair, Phil leaned down and took a quick sniff of her child’s shampoo scent. At least they were returning her to Louise clean and tidy.

Darcy dug through the bag from which Hello Kitty had emerged the day before. She emerged with one hand clutching a few sheets of stickers, and Phil’s heart double-thumped. They spent fifteen minutes pressing acceptable stickers to loose sheets from the sketchbook, and then fifteen more minutes attempting to convince Dan that he should sit still long enough for them to press a few stickers to his cheeks and hands. When Phil stared for a moment too long at Dan’s laptop, Dan escaped to his bedroom and Phil spent the rest of the hour rearranging the stickers on Darcy’ s face and arms until they lost their stickiness. 

At lunch Phil and Dan ate peanut butter sandwiches at the sink while Darcy ate hers at the table. Darcy drew with her crayons for a short while. In the lounge Dan began packing Darcy’s bags away, double-checking in all the corners to make sure that all of her things had been found. Phil paced to his room twice, opened his Mac, closed it, and rubbed his hands on his jeans. His t-shirt seemed to be choking him. When he went back to the lounge, Darcy complained of hunger again, so Phil dragged out the popcorn maker. Dan found them a few minutes later sat on the kitchen floor, knee to knee as they sat crossed under, watching the popcorn spin into the bowl. Phil‘s dark fringe dangled in the air above Darcy‘s blonde curls, and only Dan saw how his throat bobbed with laughter whenever Darcy tried to angle the bowl to catch the popped kernels just as soon as they came out of the popper.

They watched bland daytime television and Netflix as they ate popcorn in the lounge and Darcy texted Matt another hundred emojis. Dan took a dozen photos of the socked sets of feet and his own bare toes popped up on the lounge table, their television a white and yellow blur in the background. “This is iconic, Phil,” Dan told him, studying the resulting images, “I might ask Louise if she and Matt would let me tweet one.”

At half one, the door warbled again. “Wonder who that is?” said Dan cryptically. He raised an eyebrow at Darcy, who was sat sleepily on the sofa, browsing position enabled, with the iPad between them. Phil closed the little dragon island program and then looked at Darcy again with a tilted chin. 

Darcy looked back and forth between them. “Who?” she said. Neither man answered her, only raised their eyebrows and grinned. Then in a whisper, “who?” Then as the truth came fully breaking against her, Darcy’s eyes widened almost comically. “Mum? Mummy?” she said breathily. She shouted, “Is it Mummy?”

“Let’s go see,” Dan answered, and even as he walked to the door, Phil stopped Darcy from flinging herself down the stairs with one hand grasping at the back of her blouse. Dan looked back over his shoulder in surprise and missed the first step, stumbled slightly. The door buzzer resumed its strange warbling notes. 

By the time Dan reached the bottom, there was a pounding from the other side of the door. Louise burst through as soon as he opened it, hugging him only slightly before she dashed up the stairs. Phil held tightly on to Darcy’s waist as she nearly catapulted off the landing. Louise scooped her up, kissing her face, neck, and hands as Darcy started to cry in small hiccups. 

Phil backed away to the bathroom as Dan practically shoved Louise and Darcy back up into the lounge in a flurry of _darling, baby, mum, did you miss me, how was your trip, oh Dan, get my bags, let’s go, mummy, I know darling, mummy, let‘s leave, oh let‘s get sat down_. It was several minutes as Louise was sat in the lounge surrounded by Darcy’s bags and her own tote and purse. Darcy climbed into her lap and kept holding her head in two hands, kissing and babbling. Dan sat on the sofa next to the them, and Phil sat at the table, one fist tucked beneath his chin. 

_It’s nearly time_ , Phil thought gladly. 

Louise told them about Matt’s surgery and prognosis after the accident while Darcy listened silently. Louise was as vague as possible on some details, and Phil watched as Darcy avoided everyone’s eyes, her little ears as open as possible when her mother discussed her father’s accident. 

Louise talked a bit about Matt’s mum and Exeter‘s hospital , as well as the doctors and the long-term care unit, diverting Darcy’s attention until Darcy began excitedly shoving her drawing in her mother’s face. Louise finally exasperatedly sighed, “I see it, darling.” 

Louise discussed the physical therapy and when they were scheduling it, until Darcy insisted that she guess what the green and purple plushie was. Louise took a small Ribena and tried to sip it as Darcy kept bouncing between her knees, lifting herself off the floor, and swinging against the sofa.

Dan showed her the sock photos and Louise promised to ask Matt if they were tweetable material, and she rolled her eyes as she told them that they should check to make sure that _#phanwedding_ wasn’t trending anywhere. “It’s the only explanation they’ll be able to conjure as to your absence,” said Louise wisely, and laughed. She looked brighter and happier than the last time. Phil smirked at her and his tongue appeared quickly between his lips. Something that he had been holding inside very tightly spun out and unclenched. He glanced at Darcy, still gripping her mother’s clothes and pulling at her knee, and wondered what it must be like for her.

Finally, when Darcy’s voice cracked through their conversation again, Louise said to her, “Sweetie, can you help me out? I need you to be a little bit quieter. Here, I’ll help. I won’t talk for a minute or two. Yeah? Can you do that for me? Yes?” Louise kissed her twice on the nose. Darcy settled back. 

Phil counted to thirty before Louise asked her, “Can you tell me? Did you have a good time with Phil and Dan?” Louise’s smile froze on her features as Darcy shrugged noncommittally and looked at the floor. The red stitched blouse fluttered as she bounced up and down, popping her knees against Louise’s shins a few times. She didn’t look at either Dan or Phil. Phil was sure that Dan had saved the entire series of events with his good-natured play, but perhaps she was still too frightened by Phil’s clumsy attempts to do things for her. She had cried herself to sleep.

Louise reached down and pulled off Phil’s socks from Darcy’s knees. She folded them neatly on the sofa arm and, with a single raised eyebrow, dropped the clips into a bowl on the end table. “I’m sure we've had a good time,” Louise began, but Darcy did not look up. Darcy stared at Phil’s socks on the sofa arm. 

Dan reached out and put a hand on Louise’s shoulder, and shook his head. Louise looked back and forth between them, and Phil presented her with a small wan smile, thinking that Darcy had probably never wanted anything more in her life than run from their flat. 

Louise mouthed thank you to both of them before she said to Darcy, “It’s all a bit overwhelming right now, yes, Darcy? We’ll have to make something for them later to say thank you.” 

Louise reached down and tugged on Darcy’s shoes. Darcy’s hands darted out and pushed the folded mismatched socks off the arm onto the floor. Then Darcy whispered into her mother’s ear, “Are we going home?” Dan met Phil’s eyes over the top of their blonde heads and Phil couldn’t resist quirking one eyebrow. 

Louise grabbed her by the chin and grinned. “Maybe!! Well, home slice, I’m sorry to rush off, but the next train leaves in forty minutes,” Louise said as she grabbed her phone, “and I really want to get home and tend the kitties.” She quickly called a cab company as Darcy tugged her toward the door. When they were all stood, Louise texted Matt’s mum as Dan and Phil helped carry various bags out into the hall, down two flights of stairs, and out into the world. 

A taxi waited on the street outside the outer door. Both Dan and Phil squinted into the sunlight like moles emerging into the world. Louise grabbed Darcy’s hand and held her against her as the men walked ahead. Phil looked back at them once or twice, and marveled a bit at how Louise so casually kept the child near to her, mostly using her phone as they navigated stairs and down onto the pavement. He remembered vividly the way that Dan always scooped her up to carry her. How was it, with the same little one, that he and Dan had been so afraid that she would stumble? Even as he thought it, he walked too close and banged the bag into the back of Dan’s legs, and earned himself a grunting little sneer. Phil grinned sheepishly back at him as they slipped apart. The boot opened as Dan walked up and he slung Darcy’s two tiny bags into it. Phil followed, lifting Louise’s traveler into it and then closing the trunk with a thunk. 

_It’s nearly time,_ Phil thought sadly.

Louise lifted Darcy into the back seat, partially closed the door, and almost instantly melted into Phil’s arms. Phil tucked his chin against her forehead as he rocked her slightly back and forth. She smelled like lilacs, shampoo or perfume he couldn’t tell, and then the faint unpleasant antiseptic of hospital ward beneath it. When she took a deep breath, Louise shuddered a little bit and wiped her finger across the end of her nose. Phil laughed. “What?” Louise whispered up at him.

“Darcy does the same,” replied Phil, touching the tip of her nose with his little finger. Tears hovered, spilled over, and rolled down her cheeks. Phil smiled at her fondly. It felt so good to be outside, to be sending Darcy home. Goodness knows that she was eager to go.

Louise wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands and laughed. “C‘mon boys,” she said almost jauntily, with a slight tinge of cheekiness, “bring it in.” She wrapped one arm around Phil and grabbed Dan to pull him with the other hand. She squeezed both of them very tightly for a few moments. He felt himself give a slight squeak and chuckled in her arms. 

Then Phil felt her hug change slightly. She buried her head in the gap where Phil and Dan’s shoulders brushed. Phil felt her whimper slightly as she said softly, “I can’t .. I can’t even be-begin to th-thank you adequately.” Her voice broke. Phil dropped his head against her shoulder, breathed in the faintly floral smell of her hair and nodded against her shoulder. Dan’s hand came round and grabbed Phil’s opposite shoulder. He trailed his fingers down the back of Dan’s forearm in silent acknowledgment.

“We’re so glad that Matt’s going to be okay,” whispered Dan.

When the driver harrumphed gently from the front seat, Dan patted Louise on the back and murmured, “You’ve got to go.” Louise drew back and kissed them each on the cheek as she drew away. She opened the door and ducked in, as Phil and Dan drifted back onto the pavement, and when Louise waved at them from the back window, Phil felt that wave of pain strike him again. 

“Call or text when you‘re on board, yeah?” shouted Phil as the door finally clicked shut, and then the taxi was pulling away from the curb, the small boxy black shape dwindling all too soon into the traffic of their street. In the back window Louise’s hair, pink-tipped and shining in the gray interior, drew toward the center of the long seat and bent slightly as the taxi picked up speed. Suddenly Hello Kitty rose from the leather seat back, turned to face them backward through the window, and naturally before either of them could think about it, both of them began to wave at Hello Kitty. Through the back window, Louise’s hand appeared and waved wildly a few times, giving them a thumbs up until they could not longer distinguish it from the reflection in the glass.

Both of them stood and watched until the taxi turned left and drove out of sight at the end of the road. Phil looked back at Dan, and Dan lifted an arm, which Phil gravitated toward, tucking himself into Dan’s side, one arm wrapped around his back. They both took a few moments to breathe, wiping their cheeks and noses, the noises of their London neighborhood ebbing and flowing around them.

Suddenly Dan yawned with jaw-cracking intensity. “So that was a thing, eh?” he said as he looked across at Phil. They stepped apart, and began walking back up to their front door. “Fun times with Darcy.”

Phil scoffed at him slightly. “Yeah, that was… definitely… a thing.” Phil’s feet double-stepped two great stairs up to the building’s entrance in a single stride. 

Dan shook his head. “I’m glad we helped Louise, but mate, I’m fucking exhausted.”

Phil grinned and nearly crashed into him again.


	10. Chapter 10

“Refresh, refresh, refresh!” Dan yelled at his Macbook. “Goddamn you, corporate overlords! Refresh!”

“Dan,” sighed Phil wearily, “you’ve already know all the content of the video.” Phil worked in two different windows, a Google doc about new venture ideas for the radio show as well as drafting an e-mail about ideas regarding an upcoming panel at a creators meeting, long legs crossed at the ankles as he sat on the other end of the office sofa. From the corner of his eye he saw Dan’s finger repeatedly stab the keys. “Dan,” tried Phil again, eyes flicking up from his screen to take in Dan’s bared teeth as he scrunched into the other corner, legs tucked beneath him. 

Phil worked quietly for a few more minutes. He was sure that Dan worked as well, but every other minute, he saw Dan‘s fingers slip back and forth on the keyboard as he waited for Louise to load the video. Suddenly, the black fabric stretched against his back, and when he looked, Dan was sat forward intensely, already reaching for his headphones. Through the open office window, Phil heard a car horn honk from the street, so he, too, grabbed his headphones from the desk and quickly inserted the plug into the side of his Mac. Dan was bent forward, one finger under his chin, eyes moving back and forth along the screen as he watched. 

Phil quickly typed in _sprinkle_ into his search bar and pulled up _sprinkleofglitter_ in his browser.

The channel’s latest video already had 301+ views. Phil loaded the video, waited for it to buffer slightly, stopped it, and opened Twitter in a different tab. He glanced at Dan. Dan was too absorbed in the video to spread the word. Phil typed quickly, logged in and retweeted Louise, then typed _loved working with @SprinkleofGlitr on our new collab! Finally we can talk about our adventures in babysitting. Whoa!_

Phil ignored his own advice and thought that he should watch the video, even if only half-heartedly, even if he knew the scene. Dan was smiling slightly, one finger lazily tracing his dimple as he watched. 

Phil started the video. 

Phil and Dan from three days ago were sat in the lounge, Louise sat between them. “Aloha, Sprinklerinos! I’m here with two YouTubers you know well!” sounded in his ears as Louise began her monologue. Dan was on his traditional audience-left side. Phil glanced at him in person and wondered why he was so insistent it was his good side. Did he think his cheek smoother? Phil rolled his eyes and looked back at the screen. In the video, he wore his Dan and Phil shop pixel-pocket t-shirt, another opportunity for spon. Phil had worn his pizza t-shirt. Louise was between them in a beautifully striking blue color-fade blouse and a brightly colored white and yellow fringed scarf. Phil listened dimly to the opening monologue as he studied their angles, the way they had set the white light -- _had it been too close to the lounge windows?_ \-- and the contrast between the three subjects on screen. 

“As many of you know,” Louise’s voice in his headphones burbled, “there was a sock picture tweeted about a month ago.” 

Phil smiled at Louise’s insert of the tweet reactions from the previous month. They popped like bubbles from fans -- _who‘s this? Did you guys kidnap a kid? I can‘t even… I have lost the ability to even, #parent!phan confirmed._ Phil remembered that day. As soon as Matt had confirmed that a foot pic wasn’t really identifiable directly as Darcy, Matt and Louise had given them permission to put it out. Dan had been working on the proper filter for over an hour when Phil finally intervened and forced him to post. The fans had gone crazy with speculation about whose tiny feet, swaddled in a grown man’s mismatched socks, were propped between Dan and Phil’s own pairs of feet, the rock band setup and the television in their apartment out of focus in the background.

Louse gave a brief rundown as to the events of that horrible day, Matt’s accident and her panic, in her comedic voice. It was very different from the everyday voice Louise had actually used on the day, Phil remembered, which had been much lower-pitched and rough from crying and worry. This was the clown’s rendition of the important event that had transpired. It was washed and washed again, all real emotion bleached away, left for a reality show version of events, the worry and panic diluted to their least threatening but most dramatic elements. 

Phil’s eyes wandered around screen as Louise said, “Panicked, I was! But I had help, yes, I did! While this is a collab in the traditional sense, it’s really to announce that a month ago… Dan -- yes! Danisnotonfire here! -- and Phil -- yes! AmazingPhil!” as she spoke their names, she touched each man’s shoulder for the benefit of the camera, and Phil noted his own bright wide-eyed stare at the camera in reaction --”agreed to watch Darcy while I went to Exeter. This collab is a little like a vlog, I suppose, but they didn’t vlog it, no they didn’t, no, no, but we’re going to talk about the days that Dan and Phil took care of Darcy!! Let me tell you, it was an adventure!!” This last exclamation, complete with Louise’s wide eyes and moving hands, caused on-screen Phil to swallow and tilt his head back further. 

Phil listened to Louise’s story continue, with Dan’s occasional interjection and his own quick high-pitched voice, as he studied the innocent face of on-screen Phil. He worried sometimes that he tilted his head too far back. When practicing in the mirror, Phil would widen his eyes -- not in rigor, but in gentle natural gazes -- and he would open his lips slightly, showing his top teeth in a half-grin. It was the most innocent face he could pull for AmazingPhil. Was it false? Phil knew that his true nature came from the deepest part of himself, but unlike his early posted videos, he couldn’t quite allow all of his natural mannerisms out. It was an exaggerated part of himself. For the last year or two, it had gradually become part of his shtick. It wasn’t lying, not exactly. Phil likened it to watching a pilot or first season episode of a popular sitcom; what had been a subtle impression by a character in the first episode was usually wildly exaggerated in later seasons. These years were Phil and Dan’s later seasons in terms of YouTube, and his innocence -- while a gentle part of himself that he treasured -- had evolved into a dominant trait of AmazingPhil. Actual Phil -- that part of himself who was AmazingPhil but who was also highly and critically intelligent, cheeky and naughty, and sometimes exasperated or frustrated at the world -- might be found in vlogs, or in the gaming videos when he let his guard drop and made an innuendo which tore into Dan's train of thought at high speeds, but this video showed pure AmazingPhil, innocent cinnamon roll, stunned that a child was in his house.

By the time Louise got to the story of the park, and Dan was using his own exaggerated danisnotonfire personality response -- “I was terrified that I was going to push her, and she was going to fall out of the damn swing!!” with his arms waving and the dimple flashing, that part of him that was snarky and impatient -- Phil noticed again that the lounge door was slightly open in the background. It was casting a strange shadow on the wall. He paused the video while his fingers typed a quick note to close the lounge door when the light was set within one meter of the lounge windows. It always helped him to note such instances almost immediately. Production of each video improved due to such small notes.

Phil focused on Louise’s video again, as the person who was SprinkleofGlitter cried, “I asked her, did you really sleep with Phil? I thought that was so sweet.”

His own voice, much softer and with much less treble, replied, “You know, I don’t know that it was a problem. Other than our tendency to stay awake until 3 am. She went to bed at, like, ten o‘clock!! Both nights I said, ah! Ah! What am I going to do with this little girl with me? Gah!” On-screen Phil put his hand to his lips to hide his laughter. 

Phil went to his document and typed a few ideas for the creators’ panel related to onscreen mannerisms. The other tab droned in the background for a few minutes.  


>   
>  __  
> So many bubbles on the path!  
>  We’re creating a Bishi Bashi aficionado!  
>  She survived on crisps.  
>  A good helper, Louise, a good one to help me water my plants.  
>  I was terrified that the bath bomb would give her a… you know, an infection, of some sort. Jesus Christ you know what type of infection I’m talking about!!

At the mention of their fear of the bath bomb’s effects, Phil clicked back to the video playback window, and now all three of them were rocking back and forth, laughing, Dan in the corner with his uncomfortable wrinkled face pulled to the side, air quoting the word “infection,“ as Dan told the story of the bath. He skimmed the idea of the bruise slightly in the vaguest way possible, preferring to emphasize how thankful they were that Darcy hadn’t drowned. On-screen Dan spoke about the inevitability of death and that the universe was trying to tell them that even Hello Kitty towels couldn’t save them. 

Phil smirked at on-screen Dan and then looked up at the actual Dan sat next to him. Phil had been glad of it then and he was glad of it now, this dichotomy between Dan‘s optimism and his pessimism. In real life, Louise had texted them back that night and said that the bruise barely registered on her list of mother’s concerns, even though Phil and Dan were quick to offer apologies and provide a story behind it. Dan’s slightly exaggerated video story was as dramatic as it could be -- _the wails! You’ve never heard such wailing in your life!_ \-- interspersed with Phil’s innocent remark with the shrug and the quick face-aversion for which he was known, _she was naked and in a towel, and I thought, how did we get here?_

It was after the bath story was retold over text that Louise had broached the topic of a possible collab related to the days with Phil and Dan. When Darcy and Louise had been at home for a week or so, she had taken Darcy out to visit Matt for several days in Exeter’s physiotherapy center. While there, Louise had secured permission from Matt, ensuring him that the three of them would treat Darcy with the utmost respect in the video, and then they had begun work on video ideas in earnest. The real-life incidents might be played for humor and asked the viewer to project his or her own emotions into the same situation, but Phil and Dan had been asked by both parents to make sure that Darcy’s story was told as sweetly as possible.

Even now, on-screen Phil was saying, “She loved popcorn!” Each great incident, which seemed to take a hundred years in real life, were reduced to one or two quick sentences. Phil did not touch the teary-eyed or tantrum-throwing Darcy at all. He had mentioned it to Louise and to Matt, explaining that as much as it was true to Darcy’s fretful heart, he wouldn’t want to drag up any past traumas. Once published, this video would be on the internet, in some form, for a very long time. Phil hoped that all the good things about her visit were shining through. He hoped to leave all the bad things -- hurting her foot, her tears, her tantrums -- out of the video shoot. 

On-screen Dan was writhing with intensity, exclaiming, “Dressing her was the hardest thing in the world. I thought I was lit-rally going to die! There’s so many things, Louise, underwear, undershirt, pants, shirt, sweater, hair clip… So much paraphernalia, and it all has to be in fucking ORDER!” 

From the corner of his eye, Phil saw Dan sit forward suddenly, his brows furrowed, and his hand moved. Phil glanced at his timer on the video as on-screen Dan began to discuss the food issues again, the eating and feeding, and water intake, and then AmazingPhil launched into his diatribe about how they were clearly ready for a hamster or a dog. Louise had left much of it in. The timing was about three-quarters of the way through the video for Phil. Phil watched Dan take a deep breath and his hand moved again -- he’d rewound it twice? Phil looked critically at the end of the video and saw that less than two minutes remained on his screen. Dan must be nearly to the end and rewatching something there.

Slowly Dan stood and placed his laptop down on the sofa arm. He looked down and Phil hesitantly gave him the thumbs up, wavered his hand in the air as a question, down, up, down, up. He barely remembered to pause the video as Dan walked to the desk and took off the tissue box and dropped it next to Phil on the black fabric. Phil looked at the tissues and then back up at him, and suddenly Dan was so close, a kiss dropped warm to the side of Phil’s forehead. 

Phil snorted and narrowed his eyes at Dan. “What are you on about?” asked Phil, his own voice muffled through the headphones. Dan just tapped the screen in a silent admonition to watch.

Phil watched Dan’s back descend slowly down the stairs as Dan left the office. He looked at the video screen, and hit play, as he tucked his knees. The Mac was now four inches from his face. Oh, God, what if Louise put in something really embarrassing at the end? He watched as they wrapped things up on screen. Louise spoke briefly about the goodbyes at the cab, and then they all talked about Matt’s continuing recovery. Louise reminded everyone to subscribe to their channels, and Phil vividly remembered the few moments where each of them stayed still so the annotation box could drop over their faces. Whatever had caught Dan’s attention, it hadn’t happened yet. On-screen AmazingPhil crossed his eyes and looked down at the description below the video as he imitated typing on a keyboard, blissfully unaware that his best friend had seen something else during the playback.

In the video Louise thanked each of them for taking care of Darcy, hugs and kisses all around, and Dan muttered, “Thanks for congratulating us for keeping your four-year old for two days, bloody hell, Louise!! Where‘s the payment for that?!” The screen went black for a moment.

Then, on screen, Phil saw the sudden blooming of a little Darcy face. She was close to Louise, curled against a soft cream-colored pillow somewhere in Louise‘s home, and she kept glancing between the camera’s lens and her mother behind the camera. He grinned as she said, obviously prompted, “We had chicken, and popcorn -- I loved the popcorn. And pizza, Mummy, pizza!! Texas Barbie!” There was a twinkle of a jumpcut that wasn’t very harsh for the viewer -- Phil reminded himself to congratulate Louise on her increasingly better editing -- and then Darcy cried out, “The park! And we saw geese! We swung on the swings. We walked a long time. There was a man with a dog. Dan put me on his shoulders.” She sighed out, eyes unfocused, a child’s litany of interesting occurrences.

Another subtle change, and this time, Darcy was obviously bouncing her leg and twisting on the cushion. Darcy put one hand to her face, “We watched movies. I played Bishi Bashi! I caught the fish!!” This last was so loud that Phil felt his eyelids involuntarily jerk from the noise through the headphones. “We played Mario Kart. We had to water the cacti. Did you know, Mum, that cacti drink five drops of water a day?” In the background, on-screen Louise murmured -- _I did not know that darling_ \-- and Darcy mimicked how Phil had showed her to drop it from the cup. “Yes, you do this. You drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.“ With each drip she bobbed her hand down and up again. When she finished, Darcy’s eyes focused on Louise behind the camera, and concluded, “And then you’re done!” 

Another cut, this one less clean but still serviceable, and Darcy was looking directly at the camera. She began, “ThankyouPhilandDan.” It might as well have been one word. Phil felt a warmth deep in his heart. This is what Dan had been so moved by. 

Another subtle cut, and Darcy said to the camera, “Thank you to Dan for playing with me all the time. He made it fun. Like an adventure.” Of course, thought Phil wryly, she loved playing with Dan. He was so good with her.

Phil smiled at her, and one finger traced the curve of the little cheek on the screen. 

The blue eyes twinkled as she looked down. When she looked up, her grin slid crookedly. “Thank you to Phil. For taking care of me. He made it like home.” The slight pauses were more than he could bear. They spoke the world.

Phil slammed his thumb on the trackpad and paused it. It had less than four seconds left in the video. Her expression was relaxed, but the corners of her mouth were slightly upturned, the chin moving and beginning to go out of focus. Her eyes were starting to crinkle at the corners. Phil knew without playing the rest that the last few seconds would be a mind-numbing grin, bright and beautiful and brave. He grabbed the tissue from the box and quickly touched his eyes and rubbed the end of his nose. 

The screen was so bright, Phil couldn’t look directly at it, or as least that’s what he told himself. From his right, he saw movement and knew that Dan was pacing around at the bottom of the steps. Phil cleared his throat and tightened up on the tissue. He couldn’t look at pretty little Darcy’s face, and he couldn’t look at the soft brown hair bent over his phone just beyond the door. He settled on staring at the corner of the desk across from him for a few moments. He had tacked one of Darcy’s drawing games on the cork board. It was meant to be a mouse. It was drawn in simple strokes. Phil stared at the smaller head and tail and wondered how he could have ever thought that she wouldn’t understand the drawing game. The white paper fluttered and snapped in the breeze from the lounge window.

When he looked back at his screen, he hit play, and like a bright starburst, Darcy grinned, and Louise cut the video to black. YouTube immediately recommended a small matrix of similar videos. Phil hovered his finger over replay, but he couldn’t do it just yet. Nearby his phone suddenly buzzed with notification. He blinked and suddenly rubbed his eyes with a knuckle. 

When Phil picked up the phone and slid the lock screen, there was a single Twitter notification. He read the message briskly, smirked at his screen, as he found @danisnotonfire had tweeted: _fixing dinner for @AmazingPhil if he can tear himself away from @SprinkleofGlitr’s new video and sweet memories_

Phil sighed, stood up and stretched, left his Mac to charge next to Dan’s Mac, and heard the thunder of his own feet plod down the stairs as he shouted down the hall, “What’s for dinner?” as though everything was the same, as though nothing had changed, as though the sun hadn’t just come out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading, if you made it this far!
> 
> I like to think that Darcy gave Phil and Dan hugs the next time she saw them, and that Louise spent months wondering why random socks were appearing around her house.


End file.
